Sudan rebukes UK envoy’s comments on UN medivac delay, security spending
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August 11, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan has voiced disapproval in reaction
to a write-up in which the UK’s envoy to Khartoum questioned the
country’s last week delay of UN peacekeepers’ medical evacuation, and
its large spending on security.
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UK’s ambassador to Sudan Nicholas Kay (www.abcc.org.uk)
In a blog entry published on the Facebook-based page of the UK embassy
in Sudan, the British Ambassador in Khartoum Nicholas Kay wrote about
the difficulties he faces as a diplomat in interpreting the actions of
the Sudanese government.
“Did, for example, a delay in evacuating wounded Ethiopian
peace-keepers contribute to their deaths and if so, what was the role
of the Government of Sudan?”, Kay wrote.
Other hard-to-interpret actions include, according to the British
diplomat, Sudan’s “ferocious” response to the UN Security Council’s
recent resolution which renewed the mandate of the UN-AU Joint
Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), the “increasing obstacles”
Khartoum puts in the way of UN Missions, the refusal to allow aid in
the war-battered state of South Kordofan and an independent
investigations into allegations of serious human rights abuses there.
Sudan came under fire last week after four Ethiopian peacekeepers
serving with the newly established the UN Interim Security Force for
Abyei (UNISFA) succumbed to wounds they sustained in a landmine blast
while awaiting a UN medical evacuation helicopter whose takeoff was
allegedly delayed for three hours by Sudanese authority in the
neighboring region of Kordofan.
Khartoum on the other hand disputed the allegations, saying the
helicopter was delayed for less than three hours and that the holdup
was “normal” given the UN’s “bad history” in air transportation.
The British ambassador outlined the efforts exerted by his country to
engage with Sudan over the last few weeks, highlighting recent visits
by Sudanese officials to London as well as the visit of UK’s Minister
for Africa Henry Bellingham’s visit to Sudan two weeks ago.
According to Kay, the strategic intent of UK’s enhanced engagement
with Sudan is to see it becoming a country that “puts the interests of
its people first.”
He, however, suggested that achieving this goal depends primarily on
Sudan’s internal policies and their impact on derailing the country’s
quest to relieve its hefty external debt and attracting foreign
investors.
“It is a choice, for example, whether the national budget for the
intelligence service continues to be higher than the budget for
education,” he wrote.
“But it is also a choice for others who care about Sudan. Relieving
the $38bn external debt is largely in others’ hands…decisions by
foreign investors and businesses also matter,” he added.
Kay’s remarks drew the ire of Khartoum’s government whose foreign
ministry’s spokesman Al-Ubayd Muroah on Thursday expressed regret over
the UK diplomat’s questions over the death of Ethiopian peacekeepers.
“Nickolas Kay is singing the same mantra being sung by his ilk in U.S
lobby groups,” Muroah said.
In response to Kay’s mentioning of the country’s over-spending on
security, the Sudanese spokesman said “we remind him that the
government is aware of its duties and knows how much it should spend
and on what.”
“If the British government wishes to help let it help or else withhold
its assistance and tongue,” he said.
Sudan’s defense expenditure is estimated to have risen from US$2.469bn
in 2009 to 36.18% in 2010, according to a report produced by Research
And Market in 2010.
Meanwhile, in a statement likely to spark another reaction from
Khartoum, UK’s Minister for Africa Henry Bellingham on Wendesday
expressed his country’s disappointment with Chad’s decision to host
Sudan’s president Omer Al-Bashir in violation of its obligation as a
member of the International Criminal Court which seeks Al-Bashir’s
arrest.
“I am disappointed that the Government of Chad decided to host
President Bashir of Sudan on 8 August. This was in defiance of the
arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for
war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,” the UK minister
said in a statement.
“Chad is an ICC State Party. ICC States Parties are obliged to
cooperate fully with the ICC, and I reiterate the importance that the
British government places on these obligations,” he added.
Sudan’s president is wanted by the ICC against the background of the
conflict in the country’s western region of Darfur, where as many as
300,000 people died and 2.7 million lost their homes as a result of
the conflict which erupted in 2003.
(ST)
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