From UN, Sudan's Abdalmahmood Says Farewell, Ban Calls Him "Memorable," Others Say "Jovial Goebbels," Trimmer of Ocampo

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
www.innercitypress.com/sudan2drip072310.html

UNITED NATIONS, July 23 -- Sudan's Ambassador to the UN is finally leaving, after months of rumors and fight back, and just as his President, Omar al Bashir, successfully flaunts the International Criminal Court warrants against him by visit ICC member Chad, without getting arrested.

That perhaps is a fitting cap to Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed's time at the UN, during which he calls ICC Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo a rapist and a menace, only to be threatened with ICC prosecution.

Back in May, when reports had it that he was being ousted from the post due to his age and enemies in Khartoum, Inner City Press asked if it was true. The President is behind me, Abdalmahmood replied, he said I am the man who trimmed Ocampo. Article here.

Later, Abdalmahmood said he would only return to Khartoum to a job higher than his post at the UN. At a reception for Venezuela's independence two weeks ago, he intimated that the end was near, but said he would be sure to tell Inner City Press to what post he would return.

Now on July 23, he appears on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's schedule, at 3:30 p.m., “farewell call.” So it's official: the Abdalmahmood era is over. At the time of this writing, it has not been reported any other other English language media included in Google News.

After his meeting with Ban Ki-moon, Abdalmahmood told Inner City Press it was a “cordial” meeting in which Ban “said I am one of few most memorable Ambassadors in the history of the UN!”

On his next job, Abdalmahmood told Inner City Press that “contacts are continuing with Khartoum to identify new position as many entities are competing, I will inform you shortly.” He indicated he may stay in the United States for now.

During the Venezuela reception, Abdalmahmood was greeted by many diplomats, including an elderly Indian ex Ambassador who Abdalmahmood introduced as central to the fight against apartheid. Abdalmahmood was posted in India for years, a stay he described one night while watching a fashion show combining tall Indian models with Untouchables who had traveled to New York for the event.

Once in the Khartoum airport during a visit by the Security Council, a wispy French journalist accused Abdalmahmood of defending genocide. Abdalmahmood demanded, who are you? The journalist backed away -- trimmed, as Abdalmahmood might put it.

Many human rights advocates who visit the UN consider Abdalmahmood disgusting, worthy of prosecution. More than one likened him to Joseph Goebbels, leading to the come back: a jovial Goebbels.

Others say he has just be doing his job, defending his country and president, and with some aplomb. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But now Abdalmahmood is leaving.

This, we can say: the UN will be a less interesting place without him.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/sudan2drip072310.html

It's Khartoum or NY for Sudan's UN Rep, Trimmer of Ocampo, Ban's Darfur Drip

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/sudan1drip051110.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 -- As the supposed peace deal between the Sudanese government of Omar al Bashir and the Justice and Equality Movement rebels falls apart and the UN has no comment, Sudan's Permanent Representative to the UN Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad has faced his own rebellion back in Khartoum.

For the second time this year, his detractors have announced that he is losing his job in New York. On May 8 it was reported that

"The Sudanese government has relocated its ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Abdel-Mahmood Abdel-Haleem in a surprise move after his tenure was extended on an exceptional basis last March by president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir. The pro-government Al-Rayaam newspaper said that Abdel-Haleem was summoned to Khartoum last Thursday and that he will likely be replaced by Dafalla Al-Haj Ali Osman."

Seeking confirmation, Inner City Press sent Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem a text message on May 9. He replied, "Will call you in a couple of hours as I am boarding a train to New York." Clearly, contrary to the report, he was not in Khartoum.

On May 10 and May 11, supporters of Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem who requested to be left unnamed told Inner City Press that it is his position he will keep the post at the UN or return to Khartoum "only as a minister."

It is said that Omar al Bashir told Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem's opponent that he wants "powerful people" as ministers, and that Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem was "the only one who trimmed Ocampo," meaning the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

Meanwhile, when Inner City Press on May 11 asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky about development in Sudan, Nesirky portrayed the events as routine, a "drip, drip" --

Inner City Press: On Sudan, the Government has called for the arrest of JEM [Justice and Equality Movement] leader Khalil Ibrahim, and JEM has responded by saying if he is arrested, they will renew outright war in Darfur. I wonder if Mr. [Ibrahim] Gambari, UNAMID [United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur], Mr. [Haile] Menkerios, the Secretary-General, does anyone following this have anything to say about this deterioration of conditions?

Spokesperson: I’m sure my colleagues on the ground are following every twist and turn that is happening to the best of their ability, but we don’t need to comment on every single media report that comes out about the twists and turns that you refer to.

Question: I mean, it seems like the JEM is the major rebel group in Darfur, and when they threaten to go back to war…

Spokesperson: I’m familiar with who they are and what they are. But we can’t take a kind of a drip, drip approach to this, okay.

Drip drip, indeed. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/sudan1drip051110.html

As UN Council Heads to Darfur Camp, Questions of Mandate, Abyei and Changing Beliefs

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1darfur060508.html

SUDAN, June 5, updated 4 p.m. Darfur -- As the UN Security Council heads for a day of talks in Darfur, the UN's limitations and weaknesses in The Sudan are front and center. Despite the UN's tens of thousands of personnel in South Sudan, it stood by as civilians fled Abyei. In the North, the UN ostensibly knows near nothing about the Justice and Equality Movement's incursion with hundreds of armed pickup trucks to the outskirts of Khartoum in Omdurman last month, nor about the child soldiers Sudan says it has been holding since then.

The night before the Council's Thursday visit to Darfur, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told Inner City Press that he believes the UN Mission in Sudan already has the legal authority to get between combatants in Abyei, to protect civilians. Meanwhile the U.S. consul in Juba, and charge d'affaires for all of the Sudan, has a different view, that a new Security Council resolution would be needed. Inner City Press asked him if he thinks a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter would be needed, as opposed to UNMIS' current Chapter VI mandate. I'm not a lawyer, he answered.

He lives in one bedroom of a three bedroom house, his deputy works and sleeps in another of the bedrooms. They have a swimming pool, one of only two in Juba, which he says they describe to the State Department as a water storage facility. Another savvy U.S. diplomat charged new curtains as "security screening." As with the UN Mission in Sudan, whatever it takes.

Ambassador Wolff told Inner City Press he would be presenting his interpretation of UNMIS' mandate to the Special Representative of the Secretary General Ashraf Qazi. What Qazi would do next is anyone's guess.


Sudan's Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem Mohamed took issue with the fact that Qazi's legal advisor allegedly spoke against the press tour of captured pickup trucks and weapons in Omdurman. "We were going to take strong action against him," the Ambassador said. Qazi acknowledged but did not answer Inner City Press' questions about the child soldiers Sudan says it is holding, which UK Ambassador John Sawers said the UN in Sudan is investigating.

After more than three weeks it is time for conclusions. If JEM and Chad recruited them, action is needed. In any event, 12-year old children should not be captives.

In Darfur on June 5, the Council will first visit with the Wali of North Darfur, and UNAMID's senior leadership including Rodolphe Adada and General Martin Agwai, Henry Anyidoho, Hocine Medili, Michael Fryer, Wolfgang Weiszegge, Aminata Thiaw and "UN Country Team Representative" Oluseyi Bajulaiye.

This will be followed by a one hour whirlwind visit to a camp for internally displaced persons. Although the which camp will be visited has presumably been known to a variety of Sudanese interlocutors, Inner City Press will leave the location and tribal makeup unidentified until the delegation has left. It is a camp, however, which UNAMID police have yet to patrol at night, one patrolled by armed personnel of the SLM/A Minni Minawi faction and closely watched, the UN says, by the Government of Sudan.

Back at the ARC Compound -- whether any of the $250 million the UN awarded to Lockheed Martin on a no-bid basis has been used for the compound remains to be seen -- there will be a closed briefing: "media representatives will take photographs and then leave the room." Then representatives of the humanitarian community and the UN Country team will "make presentations to the Council and interact with them." The NGOs listed included Malteser, Action Contre la Faim, Oxfam and Partner Aid International. [Names of individuals have been removed, tellingly due to their expressed fear of being targeted.] Not on the list of organizations to be be with were SUDA, Relief International, CHF, Plan Sudan and, most strikingly, the Sudanese Red Crescent.

Inner City Press on Wednesday asked a major figure in the NGO community in Sudan if she deals with Ahmad Harun, the minister of humanitarian affairs who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. We deal with the ministry, I probably shouldn't say any more than that, she replied.

Perhaps relatedly, earlier on Wednesday Inner City Press was ejected by uniformed UN Development Program guards from a UNDP workshop held at a spacious hotel in Khartoum. The sign outside said "Sudan Competency Workshop." No answer was even given about what training was being offered. Subsequently, a UNDP representative explained it was UNDP's training entitled "Emotional Intelligence: Empowering Self to Serve Others!" She had flown in from New York to give the training. "My work is cutting edge," she said. The 10-page hand-out among other things encourages UN personnel in Sudan to "release beliefs that no longer serve us" and "step out of the 'right / wrong' or 'good / bad' dualistic thinking." Whether this is what is happening with the UN in Darfur remains to be seen. Watch this site.

Footnotes: UNMIS computers are unable to play the two CD-DVDs which the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave entited "The Chadian Forces and its [sic] Aggression on Omdurman, Sudan" and "The Terrorist Justice and Equality Movement." Those urging more ICC action on Sudan, on the other hand, have put their materials streaming on the Web, including this week a 17-minute film just put online by the Aegis Trust showing blurry-faced survivors of attacks on three towns in Darfur naming Ahmad Harun as providing money and orders to Ali Kushayb, to directed looting and killing. Click here to view the film. On this we will have more as well.

We will continue to ask, what now is the UN's role inside Sudan? While Security Council members met with officials of the Sudanese government on Wednesday, UN staff facilitated the transmission of that government's message to the traveling press. It went beyond translation, to promises to provide official numbers of the dead at Omdurman. "The UN is providing propaganda," one attendee muttered. While Inner City Press now thinks that reasonable minds can differ on this, probably the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could and should have found its own translator and even facilitator for this material. In shepherding Security Council members around on Thursday, a different UN / UNAMID approach is anticipated. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1darfur060508.html