InnerCityPress.com: On S Sudan, ICP Asks US Power of UN Arming Warlord, Hasn't Seen, Draft Pending
Posted by: Berhane Habtemariam
Date: Friday, 16 December 2016
On S Sudan, ICP Asks US Power of UN Arming Warlord, Hasn't Seen, Draft Pending
By Matthew Russell Lee, Follow Up to Exclusives
UNITED NATIONS, December 16, 2016 -- When the UN Security Council members met about South Sudan on December 15, the best they could do was extend the mandate of the UNMISS mission for a single day. Even then, there was already news of UNMISS having given arms to warlord, or “rebel general,” James Koang.
This was in aSmall Arms Survey report, picked up in theWashington Post. Inner City Press tweeted it at UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, requesting a comment. Nothing.
On the morning of December 16, Inner City Press asked the Ambassadors of the UK and New Zealand about it, and both had heard of it and said it needed to be investigated. The Ambassador of France, the country that has run UN Peacekeeping for 20 years, did not comment.Video here.
The US holds the pen, and more, on South Sudan. In the early afternoon of December 16, when US Ambassador Samantha Power held a stakeout about Syria, Inner City Press asked about the US South Sudan draft, and the Washington Post report. Power said she hadn't seen the Washington Post report, but that she thought the draft will pass.Video here.
There were already over 9,000 viewers of Inner City Press' Periscope of this South Sudan Q&A, but even after Inner City Press tweeted the Washington Post story to Power, her spokesman and the US Mission generally, there was no response.
