By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 5 -- The UN's lack of transparency about the delay of medevac helicopter transport from Abyei of three peacekeepers who died after a landmine explosion grew worse on Friday, highlighting the UN's lack of planning for the UNISFA peacekeeping mission of Ethiopian soldiers it is paying from in Abyei.
On August 4, after outgoing chief UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy answered Inner City Press that the Sudanese government "prevented us to take off... by threatening to shoot at the helicopter." Video here, from Minute 46:56. Audio here, from Minute 46:53.
Le Roy said that while the UN had yet to sign a Status of Forces Agreement or SOFA with the Khartoum government for the UNISFA mission in Abyei, the old SOFA of the expired UN Mission in Sudan was still in place.
But later on August 4, UK Permanent Representative to the UN Mark Lyall Grant told Inner City Press that "the UN asked for permission for helicopter to come from Wau to pick up the injured. The Sudanese government said they couldn't come from Wau because that was a different country. So they said can we bring a helicopter from Kadugli. It took about three hours or so to get that permission, by the time they picked them up and took them back, it was too late."
On August 5 Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky to confirm or deny that the UN has asked to fly a medevac helicopter from Wau and had been denied.
Nesirky in essence denied it, saying "the helicopter was to come from Kadugli to bring the wounded peacekeepers to Kadugli."
The difference is important: if the possibility of needing to bring a helicopter from Wau, since July 9 in the independence nation of South Sudan, had not been thought out by the UN, it would in many views be negligence.
The reported actions of Sudan are outrageous -- but not unforseeable. So it is responsible for the UN to put peacekeepers into Abyei without having an agreed plan to get them out for medical treatment if needed?
Was it a helicopter from Kadugli to Abyei, both in Sudan, that Khartoum "threatened to shoot down," as Le Roy put it? Nesirky would not repeat the shooting threat statement, rather saying that that "could not take off because there was a long delay" in getting permission.
But if as Le Roy told Inner City Press on August 4 the old UNMIS Status of Forces Agreement is still in place, why would permission have been needed to fly within Sudan for medical purposes? Nesirky himself went on to say "it is standard procedure that medevacs do not require clearance."
Why did the UN wait for clearance if it was only asking to fly within Sudan, and not from South Sudan? Is there a SOFA in place? What ensures that the same thing can't happen today, or tomorrow? Watch this site.
