On Sudans, Deng Makes Abyei Claim, Ladsous Stonewalls on Kadugli
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 17, 2012 -- With the issue of Abyei outstanding at
least until the African Union Peace and Security Council meets with Thabo
Mbeki on October 22, the UN Security Council was briefed Tuesday afternoon
not by envoy Haile Menkerios, but only the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations' Herve Ladsous.
The Sudan - South Sudan issues are political, not in Ladsous' shop. South
Sudan's new Permanent Representative Francis Deng, until recently the UN's
Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, waited outside the Council's
closed door consultations and then came to take Press questions.
Inner City Press asked Deng about reports that Abyei might be partitioned,
rather than have a referendum in which the sides cannot agree if the
Miseriya can vote.
Deng, who is also an author, hearkened back to Abyei agreements of 1972
and even 1905, calling it absurd that the Miseriya would vote.
On the topic of the oil facilities at Heglig, Inner City Press asked Deng if
it is true that the sides are negotiating for some form of compensation.
Deng did not directly answer, noting that the Dinka have another name for
the area.
Sudan's Permanent Representative Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman had been by the
stakeout earlier, and Inner City Press asked him if it is true that Thabo
Mbeki will visit both Khartoum and Juba before the AU PSC meeting on August
22. He denied it, saying that there is no concrete information about any
such visit "yet."
US Ambassador Susan Rice, outside the meeting, congratulated Ambassador Deng
on South Sudan's ratification of the Addis Ababa agreements with Sudan --
there were, we note, some protests, about Mile 14 and other issues -- and
invited Deng to come to the US Mission.
Inner City Press asked Ambassador Rice whether the DPKO Peacekeepers in
Kadugli in Southern Kordofan could or should do anything if they witnessed
killings there on their way to the UNISFA mission in Abyei. Rice considered
the questions and called it "difficult... in a contested area."
Later Inner City Press put the question, short and simple, to DPKO chief
Herve Ladsous as he left the meeting, in the same way Ladsous' predecessors
Alain Le Roy and Jean-Marie Guehenno always answered questions: what can the
DPKO base at Kadugli do in these circumstances?
Ladsous refused to provide any answer at all, just as he pretended in
September that an Inner City Press question about the UN's role in Abyei had
not even been asked
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/ladsous1noabyei092712.html> -- video here
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/ladsous1noabyei092712.html> -- and then had
his DPKO try to get the audio record of the question stricken from UN
Television's web cast
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/ladsous2noabyei092812.html> . This in Ban
Ki-moon's UN.
Draw your own conclusions.
Finally this month's Security Council president Gert Rosenthal of
Guatemala emerged and provided a summary. Inner City Press asked about the
Kadugli issue -- Rosenthal proffered an answer, but of course it is not him
in daily charge of DPKO, and paid for it, that is Ladsous -- and a question
about Syria. And then he left.
The next UN Security Council news on Sudan, one supposes, will be after
Mbeki goes to the AU PSC, whether through Khartoum or not. Watch this site.
********************************************************
Ban's UN Fetes Africa But Gave Sahel to Italy, W. Africa to EU, Maged in
Defense
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 17, 2012 -- As the UN trumpeted its Africa Week on
Tuesday, Inner City Press asked the UN's Special Advisor on Africa, Egypt's
former Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz, to respond to criticism that for example
the UN's top envoys in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and now the
Sahel are all Europeans, that Tanzanian Asha Rose Migiro was replaced as Ban
Ki-moon's Deputy by Jan Eliasson of Sweden, and USG Tibaijuka taken out.
Video here
<
http://webtv.un.org/search/africa-week-nepad-osaa-and-eca-press-conference/
1904401714001?term=nepad> , from Minute 23.
Maged Abdelaziz, whose taking of the OSSA post also drew criticism from
the UN African Group directly to Ban Ki-moon, offered an on-camera defense,
initially of Eliasson.
He said Eliasson has a "genuine passion for Africa," that he has traveled
with Eliasson in Africa and will do so again in mid-November, to Addis
Ababa. OK, but what about the West Africa envoys, and Romano Prodi for the
Sahel, being paid as a full time Under Secretary General while working from
his native Italy?
Maged Abdelaziz said the UN is a "multicultural organization," and that it
should not be expected that all its envoys to Africa would be Africans.
He rattled off other posts held by Africans: UNFPA, UNAIDS -- whose chief,
at least according to the UN, is from France -- and the threatened with
merger mandates of children and armed conflict and sexual violence in
conflict.
To list someone he didn't mention, there is Adam Dieng in the Genocide
Prevention job (rather than DGACM, which has been given for now to a
Belgian, holding the post for someone else in the future).
OK, but why was Ian Martin given Libya, and then Prodi the Sahel? Or Bert
Koenders given Cote d'Ivoire? To what end?
Inner City Press also asked about Sudan and South Sudan, and NEPAD's
Ibrahim Assane Mayaki replied that the government in Juba invited NEPAD to
help design their development plan. For Inner City Press' piece on the
Sudans, from later in the day, click here.
During the press conference, an 80 page "NEPAD Guide 2012" was
distributed. There is a section on water -- praising Rio Tinto.
There is a full page devoted to "General Electric in Africa." Both are
listed as "Platinum Members" in the back; one of the Corporate Members is
Citigroup, whose former chief of Africa (and Europe and the Middle East)
Michael Corbat replaced Vikram Pandit on Tuesday. Multicultural, indeed...
Received on Wed Oct 17 2012 - 19:42:03 EDT
