By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 3 -- After the UN Security Council voted unanimously to create a South Sudan sanctions committee and Panel of Experts on March 3, Inner City Press asked the country's Permanent Representative Francis Deng about the vote, and about children abducted to become soldiers, allegedly by a government-aligned militia.
Deng replied that sanctions rarely help and that the reasons the US had waited still applied.
Inner City Press asked if Deng thought the Security Council should have waited until its meets with the African Union Peace and Security Council on March 12. Deng replied that the Council talks about coordinating with and even deferring to regional bodies and Africa, but then doesn't.
On child soldiers, Deng said that their abduction violates the country's cultural traditions. We'll have more on this.
On February 27 after UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric read out a vague summary of the UN's investigation into the deadly downing of one of its helicopters in South Sudan last August, Inner City Press asked for specifics:
Inner City Press: you said that they were unable to determine who did it, that it came from an area between In Opposition and the Government. But there was this audiotape of Peter Gadet threatening the UN to shoot down helicopters that was… you know, days before it was shot down. So, can you say or find out whether these Board of Inquiry people listened to the audio and whether they found it not credible or… why it's not part of the report?
Spokesman Dujarric: They had all the information that was available to them. As a general point, a threat is a threat. I think what they were looking at is for hard evidence to figure out who had shot the helicopter, they were not able to come in with any conclusive information.
Inner City Press: Do they use a different standard of proof than even a court because usually like it seems like --
Spokesman: A Board of Inquiry tries to establish what happened. Obviously, they looked at the helicopter and all the information they had. That's the conclusion they came up with.
Spokesman Dujarric: They had all the information that was available to them. As a general point, a threat is a threat. I think what they were looking at is for hard evidence to figure out who had shot the helicopter, they were not able to come in with any conclusive information.
Inner City Press: Do they use a different standard of proof than even a court because usually like it seems like --
Spokesman: A Board of Inquiry tries to establish what happened. Obviously, they looked at the helicopter and all the information they had. That's the conclusion they came up with.
But why? Beyond Gadet, the International Crisis Group, for example, implies that the government itself shot the copter down:
"an UNMISS helicopter was shot down on 26 August, killing three. Although the results of its investigation have not been released, initial reports suggest this was done from territory controlled by the government and by a weapons system know to be in the hands of the government [n. 100: Crisis Group interviews, UN officials, Nairobi, November 2014; defence and security adviser, Nairobi, December 2014.]"
For UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous to remain silent is consistent with its approach to the Tabit rapes in Darfur, the Minova rapes in November 2012 by the DR Congo Army, and the shooting at unarmed protesters in Haiti (to say nothing of the killing by cholera there.)
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