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A bi-weekly audio series and podcast service, hosted by Committee on Conscience Project Director Bridget Conley-Zilkic, that brings you the voices of human rights defenders, experts, advocates, and government officials. Vital voices addressing one of humanity's most vital issues. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Museum.
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8/09/07
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 The former UN envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, sharpy criticized Security Council Resolution 1769 on Thursday. Money quote from the story by Reuters correspondent Opheera McDoom: While conceding that the resolution to dispatch troops was not good, Pronk said "anything is better at the moment (than) not doing anything and just talking".
But he criticised diplomats who negotiated the resolution in New York as "amateurs" playing to their own audiences.
"This is a quick fix in order to please the population in the countries of the West," said Pronk, the former head of the U.N.'s Sudan mission.
"There is no reason for euphoria." In contrast, US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad responded to similar criticism in a letter to the Washington Post on Wednesday. Money quote: I take exception to the assertion in your Aug. 4 editorial "Progress on Darfur" that there is "no ready means to exert pressure" on the government of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al Bashir in the most recent U.N. Security Council resolution. I hope the government of Sudan doesn't similarly misread Resolution 1769, as there will be serious consequences should it do so. He doesn't specify what the "serious consequences" would be (nor does the resolution itself), but asserts that "the entire Security Council [is] responsible to respond with the necessary pressure against those seeking to upset the path toward peace in Darfur."
One might be pardoned for thinking that after 3+ years of relatively little pressure from the entire Security Council, Khartoum is not particularly concerned about how the Security Council might carry out this responsibility.
(UN photo of Jan Pronk (left) by Mark Garten; UN Photo of Zalmay Khalilzad (right) by Paulo Filgueiras).
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