In Uganda With UN Council, LRA On Agenda But Not Present, Like Karamoja

By Matthew Russell Lee

KAMPALA, October 6 -- On its way to Sudan, the UN Security Council early Wednesday morning reached its first official stop in Entebbe, Uganda. Their UN-painted plane landed on the airstrip where in 1978 Israeli assault troops moved on a plane full of hijackers and hostages. This was barely comment on, however. It was the middle of the night.

The Security Council's Terms of Reference for Uganda were released Monday in New York, after Uganda's Permanent Representative Ruhakana Rugunda had held a press conference about the Council's work.

The five bullet point range from supporting the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army and the Uganda troops in Somalia to “examining... the Regional Service Center in Entebbe.”

With Entebbe the first stop after sunrise Wednesday, some wondered why the Council members, staff and press were driven fifty kilometers in the middle of the night, past other hotels, past Kampala, to the plush “Speke Resort - Munyonyo.” The scuttlebutt is that the government wanted the Ambassadors to stay in this particular hotel.

Inner City Press rode in a World Health Organization van, past tidy shops including the Jesus Cares Supermarket and branches of Tropical Bank and Post Bank, speaking with a Ugandan staff member of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The UN Resident Representative had asked him to come to the airport at midnight and he had.

He said his job is to monitor human rights, showing reports to the government, and to work with the local media. Inner City Press asked if his Office has received any push back about the wider OHCHR's Democratic Republic of the Congo Mapping Report, which accuses the Ugandan UPDF army of atrocities in the DRC. Not much, he said. Those complaints are directed elsewhere.

Since the Lord's Resistance Army forms one of the Council's five bullet points for Uganda, Inner City Press asked what his office had to say about the LRA. Not much, he said, the LRA has long left, to the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan (where they Council's going midday Wednesday).

In fact, the Council could order its mission in the Congo, MONUSCO, to do more to break up reported LRA camps there. Uganda's Ambassador Ruhakana Rugunda was his government's negotiator on LRA in 2006, and visited Juba as he will later on Wednesday.

To the UN plane, October 5-6, 2010, TOR not shown (c) MRLee

Inner City Press asked about the situation in Karamoja on which it has reported, specifically on UNDP funded involuntary disarmament of pastoralist Karamojong resulting in death and village burn downs. There are still incidents, he said. But what is the UN doing about them? It is not on the Council's agenda.

Footnote: in the VIP lounge in Nairobi, a request was made to Inner City Press on behalf of a unnamed Council member not to report that “nothing is being done.” There is, of course, one or more ways to avoid that. Inner City Press is here to cover the Council's trip and results through Uganda, South Sudan, Darfur and Khartoum. Watch this site, follow on Twitter @InnerCityPress.

At UN, As Climate Refugees Draw Oral Support, Tamil Asylum Seekers Still UN-Helped

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unsys1refugees110209.html

UNITED NATIONS, November 2 -- With refugees from armed government crackdowns in North Korea, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka being rejected by countries they reach or try to reach, within the UN the talk of late is of a new kind of refugee, those caused by climate change.

Top UN humanitarian John Holmes on October 28 described the situation in the pastoralist Karamoja region of Uganda in such terms. Inner City Press asked, what about the Museveni government's own policies, in some cases abetted by the UN and UN Development Program, of forcible disarmament of cattle ranchers who feel they need their weapons? Video here, from Minute 29.

Holmes acknowledged problems with the disarmament programs, but also spoke of drought. Five days later at the International Peace Institute, Holmes appeared on a panel on "Monitoring disaster displacement in the context of climate change." During what was called the question and answer session, a representative of Bangladesh read out loud a lengthy prepared statement asking the UN for money. Then there was no time for questions from the Press.

Across First Avenue at the UN itself, while questions are taken, few answers are given. On October 19, and once before and two times since, including October 29, Inner City Press has asked the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General what the UN system is doing about more then 200 asylum seekers from Sri Lanka on a ship diverted from Australia to Indonesia. Still there has been no answer -- and now another Australia bound ship has capsized, killing at least 11 people.

Where is the line drawn between climate refugees and those fleeing ethic discrimination? Or between green and economic refugees? When people leave an arid town in Mexico, or Somalia, why are they leaving?

From the audience came the proposal to place the issue under the rubric of migration. A panelist, from Norway, replied that those impacted by climate can be distinguished. So are some forms of suffering political correct? She said that Sweden provides protection for climate refugees. What about North Koreans? Zimbabweans? Tamils from Sri Lanka?

Footnote: speaking of displacement, Holmes on October 28 explained his delayed appears on the long trek from Madison Avenue, to which he and OCHA have been relocated. Upstairs, there's a locked office newly fixed up for Mr. Holmes' use. That was during the General Debate, Inner City Press was told, he needed a place to wait. And now?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsys1refugees110209.html