By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 5 -- As UN peacekeepers sit idle in war torn Kadugli in war torn Southern Kordofan, the Anglican Bishop of Kadugli came Friday to the UN in New York and told the Press among other things that the Egyptian battalion there was "not neutral... some people were killed in front of them."
This is documented in a report that the UN has insisted on calling "leaked" -- Inner City Press put in online here -- while now being at least a week late in finalizing and releasing the report, which for example states:
42. On 8 June, UNMIS Human Rights witnessed the movement of four armed men (two armed civilians and two Central Reserve Police) carrying weapons in and out of the UNMIS Protective Perimeter without any intervention from the UNMIS peacekeepers guarding the premises.
Inner City Press asked Reverend Andudu Adam Elnail what he thought of the performance of the UN in Southern Kordofan, even before their mandate expired on July 9. "The peacekeepers have not done enough," he said. "Peacekeepers need to be neutral."
He said the Egyptians are close to the Sudanese, and sit in their base "waiting for instructions from Khartoum." Inner City Press asked him if a force like the one now in Abyei, made up entirely of Ethiopians, would be acceptable.
He said yes -- some note Ethiopia's close relations with Khartoum and the lack of human rights monitoring in the UNISFA mission -- but added that he preferred the pre-CPA model of observers from "Norway, the US and the UK."
Ironically, Sudan's Permanent Representative to the UN told Inner City Press that it was just such a small observation force that his foreign minister Ali Karti was referring to when he said, and then took back, that Sudan could accept foreign troops in Southern Kordofan in the SPLM-North agreed.
The Bishop was strongly critical of Ahmed Haroun, saying that Khartoum had "imposed" him as governor of Southern Kordofan -- in a process that the UN and its past and present envoy Haile Menkerios praised at the time, as they flew the ICC-indicted Haroun around on a UN helicopter to Abyei.
Inner City Press ended by asking the Bishop to assess the performance of Menkerios, who Ban Ki-moon just named his envoy on Sudan and South Sudan, based in New York. The Bishop answered about Haroun, but later his co-panelist from Avaaz said it was a good idea, they would seek to meet with Menkerios while in New York. Watch this site.
