In Darfur, UN Works With Authorities on Kidnapping, Refuses Kalma Questions

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 18 -- While the UN Security Council and Press were in Darfur earlier his month, a civilian staff member of the UN - African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur was kidnapped in El Fasher. UNAMID spokesman Kemal Saiki and his associate Christ Cycmanick refused to say the nationality of the victim, or much about the crime.

It emerged that the victim was Hungarian. Finally, giving the name Istvan Papp, the peacekeeper called local station Radio Dabanga and complained he had been unable to reach UNAMID.

Inner City Press on Monday asked UN acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq to confirm this account on Radio Dabanga.

“First, in terms of Radio Dabanga, I wouldn't confirm media accounts,” Haq said. He went on to in fact deny the account, saying that UNAMID has spoken to the victim and gotten proof of life, as recently as the day before.

Haq said UNAMID is working with the government of Sudan to obtain the victim's “safe and unconditional release.” This is reminiscent of UNAMID's earlier working with the government of Sudan to obtain the release of the Russian pilots captured and beaten by government supported janjawiid.

Inner City Press has repeatedly posed questions to Kemal Saiki and Chris Cycmanick, without receiving any response.

Questions UNAMID and the UN have refused so far to answer include

Approximately how many people are left in Kalma Camp? Separately, is it being relocated?

What is the status of the Kalma Camp Five? What happened to the sixth? Long ago I emailed [Ibrahim Gambari] the following, which I now ask you to answer:

1) since there were initially six suspects in the Kalma Camp and now there are five, what can you say about the sixth?

2) these five, are they in some sort of custody of or detention by UNAMID? What would prevent them from fleeing before UNAMID were to turn them over to the Sudanese authorities?

3) please say more about the situations in which UNAMID would await permission or word from Sudanese authorities before trying to protect civilians, including detailing how information about the safety of going to certain areas is sought from the authorities, on what time line, etc -- including what safeguards are in or being put in place to avoid the delay that occurred in response to Tarabat Market.

Also, how could Radio Dabanga speak with (and name) the Hungarian hostage, and you all haven't spoken with him?

See, http://www.politics.hu/20101013/radio-station-contacts-kidnapped-hungarian-peacekeeper

"István Papp, a 55-year-old retired lieutenant colonel, also told the radio station that he suspects there is a local pyramid scheme behind his kidnapping, adding that several members of the ruling party may be involved. He said he has been unable to speak with the joint UN and African Union peacekeeping force that employs him since his abduction. " [Inner City Press note: further inquiry reveals that the hostage believes that his kidnappers were victims of the Ponzi scheme who took him to try to get redress.]

---How long has UNAMID had a Lear Jet? Why did it get it? How was it procured? Who pays for it now? What other head of UN (affiliated) peacekeeping mission has a Lear Jet?

What do you say about, and what has been done about, reports that the IDPs with whom the Security Council spoke have been interrogated by Sudanese authorities? See, e.g., http://195.190.28.213/node/4653

Please disclose all that you know about the reported (by OCHA) destruction of the village of Sora / Soro in the week before the Council's visit, including whether it was destroyed by aerial attack or ground.

From your August 11 responses, below, for now this one follow up:

7. Q: What data do the UN / UNAMID have on Global Acute Malnutrition? Why isn't it being collated and released publicly? Please provide your most recent data for the three Darfur states.

OCHA: A limited amount of malnutrition data for Darfur has been verified, which will be available in the next 1-2 days. Remaining data is still in the process of verification and will be released once verification is complete.

Fifty five days later, none of this information has been provided (contra "1-2 days"). Can the information now be provided, and an explanation of its delay also be provided?

[And later] please confirm that Kalma Camp is being closed, and how UNAMID can assure that the moves are 'voluntary.'

Days and days have passed, since Inner City Press met and conversed with Kemal Saiki and Chris Cycmanick in UNAMID's El Fasher Supercamp, where Ibrahim Gambari's “went off” on Inner City Press for exposing his deals with the Al Bashir government. Now Kemal Saiki and Chris Cycmanick are ignored and not responded to Inner City Press' written questions for some days. Watch this site.

In Darfur, UN Council Plays Mother Theresa, Dodges on Inaction of UNAMID

By Matthew Russell Lee

KHARTOUM, October 8-9, 2010 -- Why did the UN Security Council trip to Darfur feel so docile, so distracted?

Or perhaps perfunctory: the 15 Ambassadors were driven around in a convoy of some 40 four wheel drive vehicles, from being protested at the Wali of North Darfur's compound to the Abu Shouk Internally Displaced Person's camp to a hospital to the airport, where UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant took and largely dodged seven questions and then got on the plane.

Such a program implied that the UN Security Council is Mother Theresa, that its main work is humanitarian. That the Saudi Hospital in Al Fasher is unsanitary, as one Permanent Five Council member emphasized to the Press -- what exactly is the Security Council going to do about it?

Meanwhile things much more directly in the Council's jurisdiction like the host country Sudan's denial of freedom of movement to the peacekeeping mission established by the Council, UNAMID, and UNAMID chief Ibrahim Gambari prepares to hand over five supporters of rebel Abdel Wahid Nur to this same government, with a president indicted for war crimes and genocide, seems to have hardly been discussed or even accessed.

We say seem because the Press was excluded from nearly every stop along the Council member's humanitarian tour. A breakfast with international non governmental organizations was "for Security Council members only."

At the Wali's house, after formulaic speeches and much conferring with another delegation, Lyall Grant asked the Press to leave. The same occurred at the Abu Shouk IDP camp.

The Press wasn't allowed for a single second into the Saudi hospital, despite one delegation making various representations about conditions once they had left.

Rather, the Press was told to sit in a mini bus in front of the hospital. Here, Ibrahim Gambari approached to promise to try to ensure access to the program in Khartoum. He then jumped with armed guards into his four by four vehicle, which drove over and crushed green melons or squash painstakingly planted in front of the hospital.

During the 24 hours the Security Council was in Darfur, two UNAMID civilian staff living outside the Super Camp were kidnapped. Thursday night a UNAMID spokesperson confided coyly that there had been a “security incident” but wouldn't say anymore. He said to Inner City Press, “you'll probably be the one to get the scoop, but I won't help you.”

Later UNAMID fed partial information to a wire service, that one of the staff escaped and another was still missing -- the government of Sudan, the UN said, was helping look for the staff member, who it emerged is Hungarian. Despite Gambari's UNAMID implying that the rebels did the taking, Lyall Grant used the kidnapping as his example of the deteriorating conditions in Darfur.

What about the 47 people killed at Tarabat Market last month while the UN took three days to even go? This appears not to have been mentioned.

When at the airport Inner City Press asked Lyall Grant about Gambari's proposed hand over of five rebels to the Bashir government, and which it might mean for UN peacekeepers freedom of movement to places like Jebel Marra, Lyall Grant's main answer was that this wasn't in the Council's “terms of reference.”

Lyall Grant offered nothing but praise for UNAMID and Gambari, despite the latter's closeness to the Bashir government. And on the plane to Khartoum, even an unusable account of the meeting with IDPs from which the Press was excluded was glossed over, with a mention of “ad hominen” attacks by the IDPs but, even in this format, no mention of Gambari's name.

In Khartoum on Thursday night, things hardly got better in terms of transparency of the Council trip. The UNMIS Mission and its one year chief Haile Menkerios held an event with Council members, which the Press was not allowed to cover or attend.

When the Council, with different members and Ambassadors, visited Khartoum in 2008, Inner City Press attended and covered the similar event thrown by then UNMIS chief Ashraf Qazi. So are the UN Security Council and UNMIS getting less rather than more transparent over time?

The people the Council is meeting with on Saturday, it is not clear how and by whom they were selected. Watch this site.

Footnotes: in rare praise of Khartoum, once excluded by UNMIS and the Council, Inner City Press went with hard working Sudan-based journalists to the Papa Costa restaurant in downtown Khartoum, for grilled hamour from the Red Sea accompanied by a jazz quartet. It's not like this every day, one of the correspondent said.

He pointed to a traffic circle that until recently, and four two years, had Al Qaeda graffiti. Now the government belatedly painted it over -- one tangible effect of the Council's lightening visit.