Spokeswoman of UN Sudan mission comes under fire for press statements
By Wasil Ali
May 15, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Radhia Achouri the spokesperson for the UN mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has recently become the target of a wide scale media campaign by Sudanese government official and local media.
Sudan and the United Nations have signed an agreement, at the end of the last March, to facilitate the travel of humanitarian workers into the war-torn Darfur region. Aid workers have consistently complained of the bureaucratic nightmare they went through to obtain visas and permits to work in Darfur.
The Sudanese Humanitarian Aid Commission accused Achouri of falsifying information on the situation in Darfur, which reflect negatively on the humanitarian conditions. The Commissioner of Humanitarian Aid, Hasabu Mohamed Abdel-Rahman demanded that the UN conduct an inquiry into Achouri’s statements calling on her from indulging in political issues beyond the scope of her mandate.
The Sudanese justice Minster Mohamed Ali Al-Mardi went an extra step to warn Achouri not to go down the same road of the expelled UN Special Representative to Sudan Jan Pronk. Al Mardi describing her statements as “emotional and amounts to exaggeration. He added that Achouri is sending wrong signals to the rebels through her statements and encouraging them to disrupt stability in Darfur.
The daily Al-Watan newspaper have issued a subtle warning in its editorial to Achouri that similar statements might cause her to be expelled in a manner similar to Pronk. The editorial compared UNMIS “negative” statements to that of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) describing the latter as “balanced” and “unbiased”. While the Sudan Vision repeated in its editorial two todays ago the accusations of the justice minister.
The UNMIS has been without a head since the expulsion of Jan Pronk last year. Taye-Brook Zerihoun from Ethiopia is the acting head of the mission. Pronk told Sudan Tribune in an interview last February that harassment of the UN staff by the Sudanese government has increased since his expulsion because no one “is standing up for them” like he did. He described the UNMIS as “beheaded” and criticized New York for not protecting its own people working in Sudan.
Observers expressed surprise at the accusations given that Achouri’s statements do not express her personal opinion as much as they represent adherence to UN policies since she is to begin with an international employee expressing the view of the UN. They add that Achouri can not be compared in anyway to the outspoken former Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Jan Pronk.
They told Sudan Tribune that Khartoum is concerned that accusations by the UN of hampering aid work might be viewed by the international community as a breach of the humanitarian agreement signed last month. The US has said that Sudan has to lift restrictions imposed on aid workers as one of the thresholds to avoid coercive measures.
(ST)