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 إقصاء عبد المحمود تم بضغط من قريشن
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U.S. influenced Sudan’s decision to remove its U.N. envoy: source
Wednesday 12 May 2010
May 11, 2010 (WASHINGTON) — The surprise decision by Sudan to replace its ambassador to the United Nations Abdel-Mahmood Abdel-Haleem last week was primarily influenced by pressure from the United States special envoy Scott Gration, a U.N. official told Sudan Tribune today.
The official who asked not to be named in order to speak freely said that Gration who was on a visit to Sudan last week conveyed his dismay over statements attributed to Abdel-Haleem saying they will not help improve ties between the two countries.
Last month, the Sudanese ambassador to the U.N. said his government asked for clarification from Washington on media reports that quoted the U.S. official as saying in a private meeting with Southerners that he believes that the recent elections held in the country were "rigged" and "flawed" but that they are recognizing it for the sake of a smooth transition into 2011 referendum.
"If we confirm its authenticity then we will take it from there......based on that response Sudan will determine its position on Gration’s remarks," Abdel-Haleem told the independent Al-Sahafa newspaper published in Khartoum.
The U.N. official pointed out that Abdel-Haleem’s statements added to the pressure Gration is feeling in light of a struggle within the U.S. administration to take away the Sudan dossier away from him and let the State Department take over it.
Last week, the U.S. Republican lawmaker Frank Wolf in a press conference called on president Obama "to empower Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Susan Rice to take control of the languishing Sudan policy".
Gration voiced his complaint in his meeting with the Sudanese presidential adviser Mustafa Ismail, the U.N. official said, who in turn carried it to president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.
Last March, the pro-government Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper said that Bashir reinstated Abdel-Haleem as U.N. ambassador despite reaching the legal retirement age. This was against the wishes of senior officials within the Sudanese foreign ministry who wanted him off the mission namely state minister for foreign affairs Ali Karti and Undersecretary Mutrif Sideeg.
Both Karti and Sideeg have arranged to have a letter faxed to Abdel-Haleem earlier this year informing him that his time is up in accordance with ministry rules. The U.N. official said that both officials used the fax to transmit the letter contrary to the diplomatic norms and protocols "as a sign of despise" to the ambassador.
Abdel-Haleem has reportedly managed to lobby for extending his mandate with the help of some of Bashir’s aides which yielded the decree by the Sudanese president. But the latter later reversed his own decision after Ismail conveyed Gration’s message.
"They [Sudanese] do not think is the perfect envoy but at the same time for them he is the best of the worst and they certainly don’t want his position weakened to where the hawks, Hillary [Clinton] and Susan Rice would take over" the U.N. official said.
Domestically, Abdel-Haleem came under fire in recent months even from pro-government writers who asserted that his unconventional diplomatic style hurt the country’s image within the world body. Some have went as far as saying that the ambassador’s harsh criticism of the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo led to Bashir’s indictment by the tribunal.
“Mr. Ocampo, you are not welcome in this place. You abuse the image of the United Nations,” Abdel-Haleem told reporters in June 2009 following Ocampo’s briefing and described him as a “mercenary”.
“Your dreams of publicity and media should come to an end also,” he said.
In one instance the Sudanese ambassador called Costa Rica a “banana republic” because of its support to the ICC.
One month after he started in New York, Abdel-Haleem sent a letter to warning U.N. member states not to pledge peacekeepers to Darfur in response to a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1706 adopted in August 2006 20,000-strong force with a tough mandate.
Sudan later distanced itself from the letter in response to strong reaction from UNSC members particularly Western nations which regarded it as a "direct challenge" to its authority.
It is not clear if Abdel-Haleem would be offered a new position upon his return to Khartoum next month. The U.N. official said the Sudanese ambassador appeared "heavily disappointed" over his replacement particularly in light of his "zealous" defense of Bashir.
"I am sure he feels like he has been stabbed in the back after all what he has done at least verbally and before the media but at the same time there were many, many people at the U.N. and within his own mission and back who wanted him gone," he said.
The pro-government Al-Rayaam newspaper, which fiercely criticized the decision to replace the envoy, said that the candidate for his replacement is Dafalla Al-Haj Ali Osman who is an ambassador in the Sudanese foreign ministry who previously worked at the mission as well as posts in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
(ST)
http://www.sudaneseonline.com/spip.php?article35046
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