On South Sudan, UN Silent & Samantha Power in Chad, Susan Rice Records Speech, What of UN Pullout from Yuai?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 20 -- Amid the violence in South Sudan, with the UN evacuating its peacekeepers from Yuai and 11 hours slower than India to report on deaths in Akobo, the United States' messaging is strange.

  From Washington Susan Rice, now National Security Adviser, recorded a five minute speech to the people of South Sudan, posted here by Grant T. Harris. Rice is closely associated with the country's independence; in October 2010 Inner City Press witnessed her giving a pep talk to young recruits a short UN helicopter ride from Juba in Rejaf / Rajaf, click here for that story.

  Her speech, though long, doesn't mention the performance of the UN. Should it be pulling armed peacekeepers out of areas where civilians are under threat, like in Yuai? Why wasn't the UN able or willing to contact Riek Machar in the day or days after the violence began?

  Rice's successor as US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, meanwhile, as been in the Central African Republic and Chad, from which she tweeted Friday night she had raised the issue of the recruitment of child soldiers, for which Chad is on the UN list even as UN Peacekeeping's Herve Ladsous accept this former French colony into the UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA.

  Once there, the Chadian troops are charged with gang rape. Did Ambassador Power raise that, as she raised the Congolese Army's rapes in Minovo to Joseph Kabila during the UN Security Council's trip there?

  Chad is part of the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic, even as they are viewed as supporters of the Seleka rebels. What Power say about that?

  The UN, since a Friday noon briefing full on contradictions has gone silence other than a statement ostensibly from Ban Ki-moon, who is in the Philippines. The UN says it will have no briefings at all next week, despite developments in South Sudan. Will the US have more to say? Watch this site.

   

South Sudan Accuses Bashir of Arming LRA as Susan Rice Smiles, Others Queasy

By Matthew Russell Lee

REJAF, SOUTH SUDAN, October 7 -- A military band greeted Susan Rice and 13 other Security Council Ambassadors on Thursday morning at this police training camp on the banks of the Nile River.

The minister of internal affairs of the Government of South Sudan gave a speech, in which he accused the government of Omar al Bashir of supplying ammunition not only to cattle rustlers but also the Lord's Resistance Army.

Susan Rice did not react to this accusation, rather smiling broadly as South Sudan military figures praised her.

As the Security Council delegation took a tour of the facility, compete with mock hijackings of VIPs in four by four vehicle, fought off by the just trained police, Inner City Press asked another Council Ambassador if he was comfortable with the tone of the visit to Rejaf, sometimes called and spelled Rajaf.

“It's a very sensitive situation,” he said, going on to wonder what the government of Sudan in Khartoum would think of this show of readiness for independence and with what some call its Susan Rice “cult of personality” aspect. Others say it is merely Susan showing her passion.

Still, the mood was hopeful, with young South Sudanese singing and marching around in robo-cop crowd control outfits complete with thigh and shin armor. Inner City Press interviewed a number of the trainees, who said they are only paid from time to time and have no toilets, having to “use the bush.”

A speech to the Council members asked for $50 million to take the training facility to the next stage. Afterward an Ambassador joked to Inner City Press, “Did they expect us to take out our checkbooks?”

One Permanent Representative was conspicuously absent: Russia's Vitaly Churkin. It led one to wonder how such a Council Mission to Kosovo would have looked, while UNMIK was running it, before the unilateral declaration of independence. There, the UN's watchword was “status neutral.” Was that only because Serbia had Russia taking its side in the Council? Watch this site.

Footnote: the last leg of the Susan Rice portion of the trip, a visit to Wau, was canceled when the UN plane, run by Swift Air, broke down on the Juba tarmac. The entire delegation moved to the Russian base of UNMIS. Things started friendly, but then a Russian commander ordered the Press to stop using the Internet.