back to the grind:

lad reports it took him three flights to get from Khartoum to Abyei and camp and he is now up to his knees in mud as the ' rainy season' is in full flood...

expect reports to come shortly..

little bit concerned over the latest sudan Government proclamations regarding AU and UN troops in Darfur and environs and their ' mandates ' and the increased activities of the janjaweed ' outlaws' against rebel/refugee outposts...but, then, that's what he's supposed to be there for..to make everyone play nice and observe the rules.

we'll see...

Over there, it'll be kinda hard to make anyone do anything without pointing a loaded weapon at them.....

Why They Pay The Kid The Big Bucks:

" well it's taken three months in theatre, but something in the UNMO world finally came off the [ almost ] way the textbooks say it should..."

" I was standby patrol commander on Wednesday; usually this job is pretty meaningless - one checks the vehicles first thing in the morning and then sits around reading - I've developed quite a decent tan so far - or surfing, if the internet is actually accessible, until sunset.However on this morning, the regular scheduled patrol reported passing a group of about 30 armed SPLA soldiers bicycling to town. Now, to be fair we had no indication that there was any nefarious scheme afoot - soldiers routinely do their shopping with AK-47's slung on their backs and it is common to see young men walking around town with a hand grenade hanging by its spoon from their jeans - but such a large number arriving unannounced all at once in the SAF-controlled town had great potential for escalation, especially since there have been a couple of ' incidents ', to wit a stabbing and a grenade murder-suicide, involving [ drunken ] SAF and SPLA soldiers in the past month or so..."

So the sector command and our UNMO co-ordinator decided to dispatch my patrol to sort things out. Once I was actually able to extract a clear picture of the situation - concise briefings are apparently not afforded as great an importance in the Malaysian and Zambian armies as they are in the CF - S.G [ Brazil ] and I darted off to town to speak to the local SPLA commander. He offered us an officer, with whom we now attempted to ' head off' the convoy.

It really was a peculiar sight - imagine some 30 beflipflopped guerillas armed to the teeth, but riding bikes decorated with plastic streamers and artificial flowers travelling in ak-ak formation down the road, waving their arms and ringing their bells to disperse clusters of cows, goats and small children..."

" it took a bit to convince the convoy commander to stop and talk to us, but we finally were able to determine that these soldiers were on their way to the wedding of one of their comrades. Several minutes and a couple of cigarettes later we were able to persuade the 2Lt to divert his little command to the compound on the outskirts of town there to deposit their weapons before proceeding to the festivities a few at a time. In the event he was subjected to a quite a protacted tongue-lashing by one of the senior SPLA officers. Although the dialogue was carried on in a combination of Dinka, Arabic and English, it was not difficult to follow; stunts like this had potential to cause panic, and moreover made the SPLA look bad in the eyes of thev UN. Simply no-one had bothered to provide advance warning of the event. The last thing either side wants in this conflict is to have its name mentioned in the daily SitRep. Things were getting quite heated and in fact I had to interrupt on the pretext of confirming details ' for my report ' before the fireworks started inside the SPLA camp - never mind the SAF reaction. "

" we had thought that that was the end of the affair, but just as we were returning to camp, we were radioed a report that a truck full of another platoon of troops running the checkpoint. So back we went to the compound. this time they invited us to lunch while we awaited the arrival of this group, and I sent the second half of my patrol down to monitor the main road lest there be any more surprises. we worked the same deal with this group of soldiers [ although I think some of them still took grenades with them to the party ] alonmg with an agreement on the time they would return to their bivouac."

" So, the most important negotiation to take place in the Sudan? - I'm thinking not, but, fuses here are getting very very short [ and shorter ]. there is still a lot of sabre-rattling over what the SPLA feels is the sloppy handling of investigations of previous incidents while the SAF continmue to protest the presence of the convoy that was meant to have moved south over two months ago and it will only take one person with a weapon to overreact before the whole thing explodes, no matter what the official positions of the two parties..."

" All that said, the rest of the week has been extremely quiet...our mobility remains severely restricted and there are only so many times you can visit the same village. I'm pushing to conduct some detasiled route reconnaissance since our maps are over 35 years old..."

".. on the other hand,it's a good sign if there's nothing for the military observers to investigate.."

Some dark clouds forming..

"Monday: L-- and I had a training patrol/route reconnaisance to the village of Agok along with a hand-picked group of the problem-child UNMO's and our new German colleagues. Spent about half a day to travel 38 km, mapping the route and plotting critical points in the new road. Also distributed some old toys to the children there - made a complete fool of myself trying to teach them to play with a bolo bat. "

" Tuesday - Force Commander was here for a visit. New metaphor this time. Abyei is a sleeping dragon [ last time it was a dormant volcano ] on which the entire peace process in Sudan hinges. If this is true I expect it'll not be long before the shooting starts. "

" Thursday - we had a bit of excitement when a group of soldiers from the former South Sudanese Defence Force [ one of the many proxy militias who fought the war in the south , now obstenibly aligned with the SAF ] decided to erect a roadblock right outside the UN camp. They were confronted by some SPLA troops and the thing erupted into a bit of a scuffle, although, thankfully, the standy patrol was able to send the two sides back to their corfners before things got to the shooting and grenade-tossing stage."

" yesterday the UNCivPol were in Agok conducting training when they heard an aircraft landing. Their interpreter decided to take some photographs and for his trouble was arrested and had his camera confiscated before being dragged off to the CO of the SPLA Commando battalion in Manyang...My patrol went back to Agok to investigate the aircraft photograph incident. Two new ' checkpoints ' have been erected since we last travelled the road on Monday. We spoke to local police, civil officials and the military commanders and got different [ and clearly fabricated ] answers from each, so we don't know the complete situation [ and for a number of reasons I can't really supply all the details here ]. what we do know, however, is that there are now a large number of green crates with white stencilled markings hidden under UNICEF tarpaulins inside a compound of some ersatz Sudanese aid agency and guarded by SPLA ' special forces ' in civilian clothes."

" Tensions seem to have been running higher than normal recently, so this may foreshadow something more serious to come... "

quote:

Some dark clouds forming

http://sudan.net/weather.shtml





Bambini e guerra

I hope it doesn't get too hot...

The boyo reports the muck deepens:

" So, the SPLA did admit that the crates we found in Agok contained weapons. they claimed that it was simply an 'administrative transfer ' from one place to another within Sudan, but then promptly announced that we would no longer be permitted to travel south of the Kiir. The improvised roadblock we noted last week is now guarded by a section of armed SPLA troops. With the restriction imposed by the Gos/SAF still in place to the north we are now restricted to a small strip of territory about 15 km north to south, east of Nyimora.'

although rainy season is coming to an end in reality that means less frequent, but more violent rains, so we remain pretty much confined to the oil road and the town of Abyei.

Under the status of Forces Agreement and the status of Mission Agreement the UN, as it is in every mission, is guaranteed complete freedom of movement, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in pushing the matter. Both sides still allow aid agencies to poerate in their respective ' restricted' areas and it seems to me the UN could exert a certain amount of pressure by making the continued provision of humanitarian assistance contingent on the lifting of restrictions.

On Wednesday some of us attended the re-opening of the Abyei Secondary School. It had been pretty much demolished during the war, when it was used as a barracks by the SAF. The Zambian engineer squadron here put a great deal of effort into refurbishing it. Nonetheless the schoolyard remains strewn with bomb fragments and shell casings in calibres up to 14.5mm. While we were listening to endless slef-serving speeches by both UN and GoS officials, a group of SAF soldiers were busy shooting each other, apparently over a woman and some arrears in the payment of the appropriate number of cows in exchange.

On Friday, one of the SAF national monitor officers came to us with a report of some 600 SPLA soldiers who had apparently materialized to the north of us [ i.e. in the area where the SAF doesn't want us to go ] around the town of Meiram. And they are willing to suspend the restriction in this one instance and allow us to go and investigate. [ they have done this in the past as well, but only to monitor the movement of SPLA forces, not their own ]. Although the possibility of going north to invesitgate is frankly a bit exciting, we run the risk of becoming a puppet of the SAF if we check out these kinds of complaints without asserting the right to monitor their activities in the north as well. FHQ has told us to plan the patrol, but our Zambian sector commander has decided we're not going to go - we'll see who wins this argument.

Today we received another report of major SPLA troop movement to the south of us [ again where we can't go to investigate ] so it does seem that something is afoot. when I went to the SPLA compound today, the national monitors refused to sign the acknowledgment certificate for an air patrol east of Abyei, thinking that it was really a subterfuge to overfly their postions south of the Kiir.

Anti-UN sentiment seems to be increasing throughout the country, we've received orders from the force HQ that we are to reduce our public profile and cease wearing our uniforms in public unless actually performing an official task.

It's also starting to heat up here in a more literal sense as we approach the end of the wet season. Daytime highs are pushing their way back up into the 40's C range and the bugs are out in droves this evening. It also doesn't help that the water system in camp has been hors de combat for the past week and we are severely restricted in that aspect as well..

And that's how things stand to date.

Bad to Worse??

" Things here continue to become more and more tense, with the number of violent incidents in the town of Abyei constantly increasing, and the number of rifles visible in the market along with it..."

" Two Norwegian military observers arrived in our sector on Wednesday, bringing our total strength to 30..."

" On Thursday we ran the navigation and communications exercise that L-- and I designed..A-- [ one of ze Chermuns ] and I had great fun role-playiong two spaced-out aid workers who have discovered some UXO in the middle of a Dinka village., and giving our fellow UNMO's a hard time. It's distressing, however, the number of our peers who, even after six or more months in the mission, still cannot read Lat/Long from the GPS - most of them sent the UN mine action team to somewhere along the Algerian-Lybian border rather than our little village Banton in south Sudan."

" More distressing is the number who couldn't send the CasEvac message when they came across L--'s simulated vehicle accident. Unfortunately, there's great resistance from certain quarters to anything that looks like work or training, so it remains an uphill battle to improve the skill level of the team. As the G# I develop the duty roster - I've had to become very particular about about the composition of the 4-man patrol teams to make sure they even get to their intended destinations in one piece."

" We dispatched a patrol to the Abyei marketplace, according to a police report..a local SPLA commander has amassed a large stock of rifles and grenades and is arming the local Dinka population - apparently the Sudanese military police had seized an AK-47 from one of the local secondary school teachers. Later that same afternoon, there was an altercation between soldiers and merchants in the market wherein at least one man ended up with an axe in his skull. five men were subsequently arrested andcallegedly tortured by the local MP's one suffering a broken arm and shoulder in the process."

"... a bit of a reception to celebrate medals presentation; each recipient getting up to provide a bit of national flavour - my contribution was the Highland Toast [ not really the same with a canteen cup full of Indian rum and Fanta ] while K.H. treated us all to the Bangladeshi translation of the same song from the Fall Guy.."

" L-- and I went into the village on Saturday to buy some bread, only to find the market deserted. After speaking to several people, it appears that this was fallout from the incident the previous day, the shopkeepers refusing to re-open until the local authorities could guarantee law and order."

Rest of the report:

" I attended the Area Joint Military Committee this morning, wherein representatives of the SPLA and SAF met, ostensibly to resolve issues arising from the implementation of the peace agreement, but in fact to throw up roadblocks to UN monitoring activities. I was briefly optimistic when a conversation I had with an Australian Squadron Leader at Air Ops at Khartoum was relayed to the Chief of Staff at FHQ and translated into a phone call to the sector commander during the meeting, but neither he nor the members were particularly enthusiastic about resolving anything. Since we can no longer inspect any of the SPLA units south of the river, the SAF have now decided that we will not be permitted access to their units in the town of Abyei; the SPLA for their part are refsusing to accompany us anywhere other than to the joint/integrated units; east and west have now become southeast and southwest and are hence in their view part of the restricted area. Abyei for all intents and purposes has become a miniatrue Berlin in the days before the wall fell..."

More Tales from the Sand...


Been nearly a week now that we've been literally incommunicado. Some problem with the server and VSAT link has meant that we have had no contact with the outside world; voice, fax, or e-mail since last Thursday. One would have thought that it might be a priority to re-establish communications, but the technician only arrived yesterday; apparently the whole server has to be replaced, and it inshallah ! the new one'll be here today.

All your packages arrived on Tuesday....Ze Germans have never seen Jiffy Pop before and came pretty close to starting a fire with the first batch...Janice's contribution has everyone in awe - no one apparently has ever seen a 2kg jar of peanut butter before and the Aussies have actually had their pictures taken with it so they'll be believed back home...

I caused quite a ruckus by asking the UN civil affairs department if it would be possible to meet some of the local chiefs to discuss the security situation in the market. The first reply I got was that us military guys should stop interfering in the good work that UNMIS is doing. That started a very public war of words between the sender of that message and his boss who apparently have divergent views of what this mission is all about, and how the different parts of the UN are meant to work together. It took nearly a week, umpteen e-mails and two face-to-face meetings, but it has finally been agreed that, yes, it is okay for UNMO's to speak to civilians in Abyei - so long as we confine our discussions to guns and grenades.

On Wednesday, I led a patrol along the main road to Banton and then back to survey the market in Abyei. En route we encountered a platoon from the SAF JIU moving very slowly in loose file along the verges of the road. I stopped to talk to the 2Lt in charge who informed me that they were looking [ they didn't seem to be trying very hard ] for a soldier who had disappeared two days before after setting off on his bicycle to collect some money he was owed. As of now, a full week later there's no sign of him. One of our interpreters told me that this stretch of road is a favourite haunt for bandits who prefer to decapitate first and ask questions later, so there is some speculation that this was the fate of Private Haroon...

Yesterday I was part of a patrol to the village of Mool Mool - a sprawling metropolis of some 130 tukuls about 500 metres outside the UN camp - which didn't exist when we arrived 4 and half months ago. As in Abyei proper, the obstacle to development remains the complete lack of any civil administration, even the most basic functions of government, like the allocation of property and the provision of latrines are simply ignored, with the result that the ever-growing population of the area has no choice but to squat [ in both senses of the word ] in the nearest available pasture. Things can only get worse as the temperature begins to push up to 50 degrees Celcius.

This morning we heard on the shortwave the latest from Darfur, J-- just back from leave in Australia said that the tarmac at Khartoum is now crowded with helicopter gunships....

laddybuck reports that, if he can get a flight out of Abyei, he'll be returning to the bosom of his family for shore leave on the 25th! Two weeks in civilization and then back to the Sudan 'til after the new year..

be good to see...

Give him a good brew from us!

Son comes home on leave tomorrow..and then has to go back to this mess:

" The Sudanese Government yesterday ordered the chief UN envoy out of the country after he wrote that Sudan's army had suffered major losses in recent fighting in Darfur. Jan Pronk was given 72 hours to leave - an order that is likley to complicate international efforts to halt the killings, rapes and other atrocities in the strife-torn region of Western Sudan.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry accused him of demonstrating ' enmity to the Sudanese government and the armed forces ' and of involvement in unspecified activities that' are incompatible with his mission '.

Mr. Pronk, a blunt-speaking former Dutch Cabinet Minister, drew sharp criticism from the sudanese armed forces after he wrote thism onth in his blog, www.janpronk.nl , that Sudan's military had suffered heavy casulaties in recent fighting with rebels in northern Darfur.
' reports speak about hundreds of csualties in each of two battles, many wounded and many taken prisoner. 'he wrote. The Sudanese armed forces said Thursday that those remarks amounted to ' psychological war against the Sudanese army ' and declared that Mr. Pronk was ' persona nonm grata '. One day later, they demanded an ' official apology '..."

Just what you need, a bunch of guys with guns who can't take a little criticism..

They don't like Dutch 'cartoon characters' in 'Kartoum'



(His 'lil dutch girl' Interpreter is cute as betty boop dinka)



(don't worry...be hoppy!)



(SLAM-BANG theater...)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Weatherman1956,

Got a cryptic message from my lad:

seems he's had a bit of a ' Heart of Darkness' trek, as he calls it...something to do with a Patrol complete with jeep break down, dead cow and armed bandits..

haven't got details, yet..

he's due to return to civilization [ as we call home 'round these parts ] from his tour on Dec. 3..so I'm hoping for a full accounting of his time saving the world...