Sudan to treat southerners as foreigners from April

KHARTOUM Jan 26 (Reuters) – Sudan will treat South Sudanese as foreigners from April, state media said on Thursday, adding to uncertainty over the fate of 700,000 southerners living in the north six months after independence.

South Sudan became Africa’s newest nation in July after a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war of the mainly Muslim north and the South where most follow Christian and traditional beliefs.

More than 350,000 southerners have gone home since October 2010 after living in the north for decades but some 700,000 southerners still live in the north, according to the United Nations.

Sudan’s cabinet said it would treat southerners as foreigners from April 8, state news agency SUNA said. They would have to get residency or work permits after that, officials have said.

The United Nations has warned southerners will face legal uncertainties in the north because Juba has not yet opened an embassy that can issue passports.

Not all southerners will have left by April. Many say they want to go home but others hope to stay since they have jobs and fear unemployment in the poverty-stricken south.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing)

http://af.reuters.com/article/sudanNews/idAFL5E8CQ48P20120126?sp=true

Witnesses give graphic accounts of South Sudan ethnic violence

anuary 26, 2012 | 10:52 am

Photo: A woman and her 18-month-old baby, displaced by ethnic violence, wait for aid at a U.N. food distribution center in Pibor, South Sudan, this month. Credit: Hannah McNeish / AFP/Getty Images
REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — Neighbors found the 18-month-old boy crying alone in the bush outside his village of Wek in South Sudan.

Both his parents had been shot to death about two weeks ago during ethnic clashes between the Murle and Luo-Nuer tribes in Jonglei state. The attackers had smashed the child’s head against a tree and left him for dead, according to witness accounts collected by the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders. His head injuries were severe.

“He was abandoned, without any help,” a witness told the group, which released a report Tuesday on the violence. “We, the community, came looking for people who needed help in the bush and we found him, still alive and alone.”

Doctors Without Borders did not release the names of the witnesses out of concern for their safety.
About 55 people died in the Jan. 11 assault, which left dozens wounded. Many remain missing. The violence was carried out by Murle tribesmen in revenge for attacks by the opposing Luo-Nuer tribe late last year.

At least 120,000 people in Jongwei are in need of aid after violent attacks in December and January, according to the United Nations. There are no reliable estimates of the dead, with victims scattered over vast areas of bush.

“It was evening when we were attacked,” an 18-year-old woman from Wek, whose husband and one of her children were shot and killed, told Doctors Without Borders. “People all around us were being shot and cut with knives. When I heard the shooting, I tried to run away with my husband and my children, but I was shot in the leg and I fell down.”

Doctors Without Borders treated 94 people at the site for stabbing and gunshot wounds. More than half of the 13 victims airlifted out by the group were less than 5 years old.

Accounts of attacks in late December by Lou-Nuer gunmen against Murle tribesman near Pibor were equally grim.

A 24-year-old woman fled her village near Pibor with her 3-year-old daughter, along with two other women with their boys, ages 10 and 11, and hid in the grass. But the attackers heard her child crying and came for them.

“They abducted my child and slit the throats of the two boys in front of us. They told us three women to run — we ran 10 meters and they started shooting. The other two women were killed right away. I was shot in the leg so I fell down. They came over to me and shot me in the head to make sure I was dead and left me there.”

Shot in the cheek and leg, she survived alone in the bush for a week by crawling to a river for water. Later she found out her mother had been killed. Her daughter is still missing.

“My only child has been taken; I feel so alone and it’s very painful,” she said. “Ten people have been killed from my family, four women and six men. Eight people have been killed from my husband’s family.”

Intercommunal violence between the Murle and Lou-Nuer tribes has been going on for centuries, mainly around the issue of cattle rustling, which brings honor to young tribal men when they successfully steal stock and increase their own herds. Some 80,000 cattle were stolen in the recent violence. The loss of cattle, the main store of wealth in these communities, leaves families without a livelihood.

But battles that were once fought with spears are now fought with guns and carry high fatalities. Vast numbers of weapons can be found in South Sudan after decades of civil war that led last July to its independence from Sudan.

The Enough Project, a human rights group, said in a report released Thursday that the Sudanese government had fueled the intercommunal violence during the civil war in order to destabilize the south. The recent violence underscores the weakness of South Sudan’s police and army, and the breakdown of traditional authority structures, just one of many threats facing the fragile new state, according to the group.

“The tip of the iceberg is the resurgence of conflict between the Lou-Nuer and Murle communities of Jonglei state, but below the surface, other potential intercommunal crises exist throughout South Sudan,” the report says. “The causes of this violence go beyond the retaliatory nature of cattle raiding and touch upon broader issues of accountability, reconciliation, political inclusion, state effectiveness, development, and the proliferation of arms among the civilian population.”

A 39-year-old man shot in the arm in the December attacks near Pibor said his family escaped death by hiding underwater in the river, with just their mouths exposed for air.

“My home has been burned to the ground, all of it, everything,” he said. “I don’t know if I can go back home — because so many are missing, many are dead.

“How can we think about our future?”

— Robyn Dixon

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/01/doctors-without-borders-releases-graphic-stories-of-south-sudan-ethnic-violence.html

Civilians Bear Brunt of Jonglei State Violence in South Sudan

Joe DeCapua

Photo: Doctors Without Borders / MSF

An MSF doctor examines a baby in Pibor, in Jonglei State in South Sudan. People who went into hiding following recent attacks continue to come in for urgently needed medical care at MSF’s re-opened facilities.

The medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said it continues to treat wounded civilians in South Sudan’s Jonglei State, where ethnic violence stemming from cattle raids has left about one thousand people dead. Many of the wounded are seeking help some three weeks after an attack on the town of Pibor and villages in Pibor County.

“We have medical teams stationed in different parts of Jonglei State. Many of the people that we are receiving after the recent violence have extremely bad wounds,” said Jean Marc Jacobs, deputy head of mission in South Sudan for the group, also known as MSF.

Festering wounds

Many of the wounded are women and children. About 60 civilians had gunshot wounds. Many others had been beaten as they tried to escape the violence. There are also many malaria cases.

“The main problem that we see,” he said, “is that people have taken a very long time to actually reach medical facilities. Many of those wounds are now badly infected.”

MSF has been operating in Jonglei State since 2005 with one hospital and two outreach clinics. Jacobs said, “It is a state where access to basic services is very limited. Hospitals, schools, access to water – all these are very, very limited. The violence is preventing people from accessing these services even more.”

He added, “We are very worried by the pattern of violence that we are witnessing. This has been going on for the last couple of years. And the impact on civilians is really becoming unacceptable.”

Missing

MSF has 156 staff members in Jonglei State and they have not been immune to the violence there.

“There are still 25 that are unaccounted for and one of our staff, sadly, has been confirmed dead. This is obviously very sad news for us and we are extremely worried about that the 25 that we are still trying to locate,’ said Jacobs.

The unaccounted for workers were all hired locally. It’s possible some have sought safety with family members, but others may still be hiding in the bush. “We fear the worst, obviously,” he said.

MSF has sent teams to various parts of the state to try to locate the missing. They often found a lot of empty villages, indicating civilians are in hiding. The concern is that some may be wounded or injured and without medical care.

Security?

There are national and international troops in Jonglei State. Jacobs said, “It is not for MSF to comment on whether or not they provide security to the people.”

The U.N. Special Envoy to South Sudan, Hilde Johnson, said more peacekeeping troops are being sent to Jonglei State. There had been concerns that those troops were outnumbered by local gunmen.

While the medical aid group said it has enough supplies to treat those in need, getting the supplies to Jonglei isn’t easy. A lack of road access means the supplies must be flown in.

“It is a major undertaking, but we are making a big investment and we are committed to the population of Jonglei,” he said.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/decapua-jonglei-msf-26jan12-138131458.html

Lessons From South Sudan

Following the January 2011 referendum, South Sudan became the newest African state on July 9, 2011, in line with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army and the Government of Sudan which provided for a referendum to determine if the people of South Sudan want to remain in one Sudan or form their own separate country. An overwhelming majority voted to form their separate country, hence the creation of South Sudan as a separate country on July 9, 2011.

In so many ways, that was a watershed event. For one, it was the first time that the colonial boundaries of independent Africa were tampered with. It also set a precedent for all secessionists in Africa on how to go about separation. It also produced a template for micro-nationalism in many disparate African countries. This is not the time to apportion blames, but after more than 50 years of staying together, the pains of separation in Sudan can only be imagined.

But, less than one year after the event, what many visionaries have foreseen is now coming to pass. Jonglei state of South Sudan became a disaster zone where some 100,000 people have fled recent clashes between rival ethnic groups. Some 6,000 ethnic Lou Nuer fighters attacked the area around Pibor town, outnumbering the army and UN forces. Food, medicine and shelter were now badly needed there.

This is the latest round in a cycle of violence which has lasted several months – in one incident last year some 600 Lou Nuer were killed by attackers from the Murle community, the group which fled from Pibor. The clashes began as cattle raids but have spiraled out of control. There have been some reports that more than 150 people had been killed but government sources say that between 20 and 30 had died.

UN humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, Ms Lise Grande, said that “hundreds, if not thousands” of people had started to return to Pibor. But she said the humanitarian situation was “pretty grim”. But, according to Ms Grande, besides the looting of a Medicins Sans Frontieres clinic, the town had not suffered much damage and the government was beginning to deploy 3,000 extra soldiers and 800 police officers to the area.

Mr. John Boloch of South Sudan’s Peace and Reconciliation Commission and a member of the Murle community had earlier said that people who had fled Pibor had since been hunted down and killed near River Kengen, south-east of the town. He accused local politicians of exacerbating the longstanding rivalries for their own ends and also asked why UN peacekeepers and the army were protecting government buildings in Pibor, rather than the people.

Mr. Boloch told Sudan Catholic Radio News that children and women were massacred in that area from January 2 up to 3 of 2012. There were also reports that many people may have drowned in a river as they fled the attackers. Government is trying to organize a “peace forum” where leaders from the two communities would be invited to discuss how to put an end to the cycle of violence.

Cattle vendettas are common in South Sudan, as are other clashes between rival groups. The UN says some 350,000 people were displaced because of inter-communal violence last year. This presents a major challenge to the government of the newly independent state, which also faces cross-border tensions with its northern neighbour, Sudan.

Any time there is an alliance due to a common enemy, once that enemy is no more, old conflicts resurface and new conflicts emerge. That is an iron law of history. When the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army was fighting the north, there was unity in the south due to a common goal of overcoming the north and or separating from the north. But soon after achieving that objective, South Sudan is now conscious of its heterogeneity. There are over 80 ethnic groups there with Dinka having more prominence than the rest.

Apart from diversity, South Sudan is also one of the world’s poorest regions. It hardly has any roads, railways, schools or clinics following many years of conflict, which has left it awash with weapons. However, it has enormous goodwill from the world’s major powers. It has enormous resources and huge potentials as well as great opportunities.

The government of South Sudan is already coming to terms with the fact that running a rebellion or liberation movement is not the same as running a government or a country. The task ahead requires statesmanship, patience and perseverance. There is need to carry along every segment of the society. In other words, a sense of belonging must be created for every South Sudanese.

And, at the end of the day, whatever may be the support they are getting from outside, developing their young nation lies with their people, who must accommodate each other equitably and fairly as well as live with their neighbours in common African brotherhood. In South Sudan, there is a lesson for all of us Africans.

http://leadership.ng/nga/columns/14426/2012/01/25/lessons_south_sudan.html

South Sudan Gambles Big With Oil Shutdown

Gabe Joselow | Nairobi, Kenya

Photo: Reuters

South Sudanese express their support as President Salva Kiir declared a halt on all oil operations in South Sudan, in Juba, January 23, 2012.

South Sudan is shutting down its oil production to protest against high fees Sudan charges to transport the commodity through northern pipelines. The move threatens both countries’ economies and is heightening tensions that have festered since the south declared independence in July.

The government of South Sudan says it already has cut oil output in the country by more than half and plans to continue reducing outflows unless Sudan meets its demands.

South Sudan had shut down most of its wells by the end of the day Tuesday in the north central parts of the country. The process is continuing in Upper Nile state in the east, home to the bulk of the country’s oil fields.

Continuing conflict

The shutoff is the latest development of an ongoing dispute between the two Sudans on how to share oil revenues following their split last year.

South Sudan claims the north has confiscated $815 million in oil from the south. Khartoum says it took the oil to compensate for lost revenues.

Sudan also is charging the south transit fees as high as $36 per barrel – far above the industry standard – which is closer to $1 per barrel.

South Sudan’s Petroleum and Mining Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau says that Khartoum’s terms are unacceptable.

“We also have been paying the operation costs for the pipeline and marine terminal and covering all these facilities. But Khartoum, unfortunately, is imposing punitive fees, discriminatory fees, against South Sudan as a penalty for the secession,” said Dau.

Heavy reliance on oil money

More than 90 percent of South Sudan’s revenues are derived from oil exports. The country, at its creation, inherited three-quarters of the known oil reserves in the former united Sudan. The separation is said to have cost Khartoum more than $7 billion in lost revenue.

While South Sudan produces the bulk of the crude oil, though, it has no refining capacity, and relies on northern pipelines to export.

The move to shutdown the pipelines will cost both countries economically, but Dau said the south has considered the alternatives.

“You will come to one answer. Either you produce, you get zero – or you shut down, you get zero and Khartoum gets zero,” said Dau.

AU summit negotiations

The leaders of the two Sudans are expected to meet on the sidelines of the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. An AU panel that has been mediating the negotiations submitted a new draft proposal this week to resolve the dispute.

Dana Wilkins, a campaigner at Global Witness, a natural resources monitoring group, said the south has a lot to lose if its gambit does not work.

“South Sudan in particular is going to feel the hit on revenues pretty quickly. It’s not clear just how much they have in savings, but what is clear is that they’re going to have to rely heavily on the international community for financial support over the coming year if this shutdown happens in full and the negotiations don’t come to at least an interim arrangement,” said Wilkins.

South Sudan is exploring alternative transit routes for its oil. The government announced this week it has struck a deal with Kenya for a new pipeline stretching to the town of Lamu on the Indian Ocean. But it was not clear when the pipeline may be started or finished.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/South-Sudan-Gambles-Big-With-Oil-Shutdown-138129903.html

South Africa’s hypocrisy on the Dalai Lama in sharp contrast to South Sudan

Isaac Mpho Mogotsi

26 January 2012

Isaac Mpho Mogotsi contrasts our policy towards Tibet, with our approach to South Sudan

Nothing illuminates the inconsistency, and even hypocrisy, of South Africa’s foreign policy than the divergent approaches it adopts towards Tibet, a province of China, and what is now the newly independent African state of South Sudan.

The current controversy about our government’s delay in issuing a visa to the Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama, to attend the 80th birthday of Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu, has brought this into sharper focus.

There is no doubt that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) views the Dalai Lama as a political enemy that is hell-bent on promoting the separatist goal of a break-away Tibet, even though the Dalai Lama supports greater autonomy for Tibet within greater China, and is advancing this goal through peaceful, non-violent, means.

It is not a diplomatic secret in international relations that the PRC exerts sustained and enormous pressure on other countries of the world to distance themselves from Dalai Lama and his international campaign for greater autonomy for Tibet within greater China.

The PRC would naturally not spare South Africa such diplomatic pressure in the event of the Dalai Lama wishing to visit South Africa to attend Archbishop Tutu’s birthday, whether in private or in public.

Since 2009, under the Jacob Zuma administration, there seems to have emerged an unfortunate pattern on the part of South Africa to postpone, protract and complicate the process of a possible visit of the Dalai Lama to South Africa to the point where such a possible visit is rendered impossible, to all intents and purposes.

Compare this attitude of the Jacob Zuma government to South Africa’s unstinted and whole-hearted support for the dismemberment of Sudan, and the creation of the independent Republic of South Sudan on July 9 2011.

Whilst Tibet existed as an independent entity until the 13th century, when it was conquered by the Chinese Ming Dynasty, as well as between 1912-1951, after which it was incorporated by force into the PRC, South Sudan has never existed as an independent state, in one form or another.

If anything, the official South Sudan Government website states that “no state existed in the territory now known as South Sudan before the European scramble for Africa”.

But critically, since 1955, and especially after the Independence of Sudan in 1956, both the forces that fought for South Sudan Independence – South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM), and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) – resorted to violence and armed struggle as policy of choice from the get-go. And they remained largely focused on independence as an end goal.

In contrast, save for intermittent uprisings in Tibet since 1951 against the Han Chinese domination, the Dalai Lama and the Free Tibet movement remained largely committed to peaceful means and non-violence, and never sought independence from PRC, but instead sought greater autonomy for Tibet within greater China.

South Sudan has a population of about 8.2 million people, made up mainly of black Bantu tribes, many of whom are Christian and African animiist, unlike the Arab and Moslem North Sudan.

On the other hand, Tibet has a population of about 5.5 million people, made up mainly of Tibetan Buddhists, minority Moslems and Christians, and the Han Chinese who have been largely resettled by the central Beijing  PRC government to influence Tibet’s demographic profile to its favour.

The historical threat that binds Tibet and South Sudan together is the unspeakable perfidy that was perpetrated on both by imperial British colonialism.

Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Imperial Britain and Egypt established the Anglo-Egypt Condominium over Sudan between 1895-1955, which basically favoured the Arab and Moslem North Sudan over the Black, Christian and Animist South Sudan.

Thus the seeds for future conflicts between North and South Sudan were mid-wived.

With regard to Tibet, in 1914, at the height of China’s national humiliation by colonial and imperial powers, and two years after the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) under Yetsen, imperial Britain connived and schemed to conclude the Shimla Convention with Tibet, which had the effect of recognising Tibet as no more a part of China.

As a result of Imperial British scheming, and despite the strong protestations from ROC, between 1912-1951 Tibet was effectively outside the control of first the ROC, and briefly of the PRC.

The seeds of the current international and diplomatic stand-off over Tibet were thus planted.

In his book, “The Coming Collapse of China”, Gordon G. Chang states that “the colony of 150 000 Tibetans in India is the West’s favorite group of refugees, an inspiration to those who root for underdogs”.

There is also little doubt that South Sudanese refugees from the conflict with Arab and Moslem Northern Sudan, became the West’s favourite group of African refugees, especially amongst the American Evangelicals, who saw these South Sudanese Christian refugees as a ready fodder for their “Clash of Civilization” between the Christian West and Islamic Fundamentalism.

But here the similarities between Tibet and South Sudan ended.

Whilst there was growing international, and even black African, support for an independent South Sudan, the view of the international community on Tibet has not departed much from what India’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, stated in September 1950 to a senior Tibetan delegation:

“The Government of India will continue the policy of the British period in considering Tibet outwardly a part of China but internally independent”.

But even this self-restrained and hedged Nerhu formulation on Tibet the PRC rejected out of hand. It may also have been the unspoken reason why the PRC, without any provocation whatsoever, invaded India in 1962, “to teach it a lesson”, as Chou En-Lai, China’s legendary Foreign Minister, once infamously put it.

In the circumstances, the only thing that was a positive development for Tibet was that Taiwan ceased to view Tibet as an indivisible and inseparable part of PRC.

For its part the PRC government continued to view any campaign for greater Tibetan autonomy, or Tibetan independence, as a thin wedge directed at challenging the territorial integrity, national sovereignty and sovereign independence of the PRC.

For many decades the Arab and Moslem Northern Sudan viewed the struggle for independence by South Sudan in a similar vein.

However the key distinguishing feature between China and the Arab, Moslem, and North Sudan was that from 1978, thanks to Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, China emerged as a global economic superpower, whilst Sudan’s national vitality was sapped by the two vicious civil wars with South Sudan between 1956-1972 and 1983-2005.

So definitive was Sudan’s national decline and diplomatic  collapse as a Horn of Africa regional power that not even the sacrosanct OAU principle of the sanctity of inherited colonial borders was sufficient to save it from dismemberment, and the secession, of South Sudan.

Ethiopia, Sudan’s neighbour, had voluntarily let go of Eritrea at the conclusion of a protracted war that was waged to oust the Ethiopian dictator Mengistu from power. But North Sudan never wanted to let go of South Sudan, very much like the PRC has no intention to let go of Tibet.

It must therefore have come as a great irony to Sudan that from 2008 former President Thabo Mbeki devoted all his time and energy to the resolution of the Sudanese conflict, a feat that should rightly earn him the Nobel Peace Prize this year or next.

When South Sudan gained independence on July 9 2011, South Africans were represented by no less a personage than President Jacob Zuma at the independence celebrations to usher in Africa, and the world’s newest country.

But it turns out that none of our post apartheid senior Government Ministers, with the salutary exception of former President Nelson Mandela, would want to be caught alive sharing a lift, let alone attending the same birthday party, with Tibet’s Dalai Lama.

Should it not be clear by now that Tibet has by far a much greater historical claim and suzerainty antecedents to its coveted status of “outwardly a part of China but internally independent”, to quote India’s Nerhu, than South Sudan ever had to now and today be a newly independent African country?

When did our moral courage and diplomatic consistency depart us to deal with historical facts as they are?

Isaac Mpho Mogotsi is Executive Director of the Centre Of Economic Diplomacy In Africa (CEDIA). He is also a businessman and former diplomat. This article first appeared in the Pretoria News, October 2011

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=277220&sn=Detail&pid=71616

Aid Agencies Sound Warning in South Sudan (Video)

Intense tribal conflict in South Sudan’s Jonglei state has resulted in thousands of deaths and many more injuries, despite the launch of one of the most expensive humanitarian interventions in the region’s history,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5xxCwkI_a8

Aid agencies sound warning in South Sudan
Al Jazeera
Intense tribal conflict in South Sudan’s Jonglei state has resulted in thousands of deaths and many more injuries, despite the launch of one of the most expensive humanitarian interventions in the region’s history, The UN is confident that enough food …

In case you are dePRESSED…………..watch this music video…..because………”it is our duty promote [our musicians].

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U7K8MdaRggY#!

There is so much talent in South Sudan but due lack of resources, new artist like this one got little chance to be heard, so it is our duty promote them, inshalla they ill get a name recognition in few years after Referumdum.

South Sudan’s Rebel Groups Oppose to the Construction of the New South Sudan Oil Pipeline to Kenya

Constructing a New Oil Pipeline is impossible without Approval of SSLA and SSDA

South Sudan’s Rebel Groups Threatened to Prevent the Construction of New Oil Pipeline; Warned ‘Theaters of War’

SSLA’s Soldiers. Photo: BBC

For Immediate Release

SSLM/A Headquarters, Mayom, South Sudan

January, 25, 2012

The South Sudan Liberation Army and South Sudan Democratic Army want to alert members of international community and the people of South Sudan that the proposed construction of a new oil pipeline to Kenya may not take place due to insecurity in South Sudan. The SSLA and SSDA made their views clear to the White House, Kremlin, UK, Norway and Canada about the gambling being taken by the regime of Gen. Salva Kiir.

We want to state, in no uncertain terms, that SSLA and SSDA stand for the welfare of the people of South Sudan and do not condone any irrational imposition of unfair business dealings between the South and the North. SSLA and SSDA believe that the South should pay only international rate in order to export its oil through Port Sudan. Despite our position that both the North and the South should reach a reasonable agreement on transit fees in order to have brotherly relations, we strongly condemn the unilateral decision taken by Salva Kiir’s regime to initiate a policy of constructing a new pipeline without seeking approval from SSLA and SSDA which control most of rural areas where oil is currently being produced.

The SSLA and SSDA do not care whether the people of South Sudan decide to construct a new pipeline through Kenya provided that the decision to do so is widely accepted by various military and political forces of the country. On the contrary, the regime of Salva Kiir not only failed to consult the appointed parliament in Juba, but also refused to seek expressed permission from revolutionary forces of SSLA and SSDA which controlled rural areas of oil rich states of South Sudan.

It is our position that any major decision such as building a new pipeline needs expressed permission from revolutionary forces because failure to adhere to democratic procedure may result into military confrontation. Although SSLA and SSDA never attacked oil installations before because they are not fighting to cripple the South economically, we want to enlighten international community that the construction of the new pipeline will not take place on the ground because Salva Kiir did not consult the revolutionary forces prior to shutting down the oil.

We want to warn any oil company that will attempt to take part in the construction of the new pipeline to stay away from Unity State and Upper Nile because the SSLA and SSDA will never allow the construction of the new pipeline because the decision was taken without adherence to democratic principles. The SSLA and SSDA will soon launch Operation Ending Corruption which was delayed until the end of this month to allow the people of South Sudan to celebrate Christmas and New Year.

It is the position of SSLA and SSDA that construction of a new pipeline must take place unless approved by a democratically elected government, various political parties and revolutionary forces. The unilateral decision taken by Gen. Salva Kiir will lead South Sudan’s economy to complete shutdown. A country that depends on oil to survive cannot shutdown the oil production without alternative means to survive.

A wise decision taken after careful studies could get popular support in South Sudan in order to start building a new pipeline while using Port Sudan to export oil so that the South is economically capable to fund the construction of the new pipeline and to pay civil servants. South Sudan’s economy revolves around oil and the abrupt shutdown of the oil production will lead the entire country into a virtual standstill. Most private investors flocking to South Sudan did so because of the oil. Now that the oil is not any longer there, all foreign investors will run away. From economic perspective, the non-oil revenues that have been generated through tax come from trade with Kenya and Uganda. Now that oil does not exist, the Kenyan and Ugandan businesspersons will run away because the people of South Sudan have no alternative income to buy goods coming from their countries.

Had Gen. Salva Kiir consulted SSLA and SSDA, we would have told him that it is economically dangerous to shutdown the oil production and start building a new pipeline given primitive economy of South Sudan which depends on oil to build its infrastructure and institutions. What the regime of Salva Kiir did is economic suicide for South Sudan. A wise thinking brain can start building a new pipeline while using Port Sudan to export the oil in order to generate funds not only to sustain life in the South but also fund the construction of the new pipeline instead to rely on loans which have steep interests that will cripple the South with debts in the long run.

Therefore, the SSLA and SSDA warn oil companies not to take part in the construction of the new pipeline because Upper Nile and Unity State will be theaters of war between Salva Kiir’s regime and the revolutionary forces of South Sudan that are fighting to rescue the South from corruption. Within few days, fire will be burning everywhere in Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei States to liberate the South from ruling tourists in Juba. It is a matter of time that Salva Kiir will migrate to Kenya where he bought two villas for his family.

For contact:

Information Department

SSLM/A Headquarters

Mayom, South Sudan

Email: southsudanliberationarmy@hotmail.com

http://southsudannewsagency.com/news/press-releases/south-sudans-rebel-groups-threatened-to-prevent-the-construction-of-new-oil-pipeline-warned-theaters-of-war

Two Sudans’ Oil Dispute Deepens As South Sudan Shuts Down Wells and Puts Army On Full War Alert

Newly founded South Sudan says northern neighbour is stealing oil and charging too much for access to it pipelines

South Sudanese people turn out to hear a speech by their president, Salva Kiir. The South has announced the suspension of oil exports through Sudan. Photograph: Reuters

South Sudan official has said it is shutting down more than 900 oil wells after accusing neighbouring Sudan of stealing its oil.

Pagan Amum, the secretary general of South Sudan’s ruling party, said the shutdown would have a big impact on the new nation, which relies heavily on oil revenues, but he would rather see the oil stay in the ground than lose it to Sudan. “That is even worse,” he said.

At the centre of the dispute are pipeline fees being charged by Sudan. All of South Sudan’s oil currently runs through Sudan’s pipelines to Port Sudan for export. Khartoum has asked for $32 per barrel but South Sudan has called this extortion and offered $1 per barrel, which it says is the highest in the world.

The landlocked South on Sunday started to halt oil production after accusing Sudan of stealing $815m worth of its oil. South Sudan broke away from Sudan in July 2011 to form the world’s newest country but the neighbours did not agree on oil transit fees.

The shutdown came a day after South Sudan and Kenya signed a memorandum of understanding to build a pipeline from South Sudan’s oil fields south to Lamu, on the northern Kenyan coast, where a new port is planned.

The project has been a matter of speculation for the last few years, but South Sudan’s oil minister, Stephen Dhieu Dau, said planning would begin as soon as possible. “We do not know exactly when, but the pipeline is a priority for the government,” he said.

Amum said the oil shutdown would be completed within two to three days. He said South Sudan was also approaching Ethiopia about developing a new pipeline that would eventually go to port through Djibouti.

While South Sudan is losing large amounts of money by shutting down its oil industry, Sudan is losing money as well and risks losing future revenue if South Sudan completes new pipelines out if its territory.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/26/south-sudan-shuts-oil-wells?newsfeed=true

South Sudan puts its army on maximum alert in oil row escalation

By Ngor Arol Garang

January 25, 2012 (JUBA) – South Sudan on Wednesday said it has put its troops on maximum alert, amid growing tensions with Khartoum over the ongoing oil wealth sharing dispute and reports of air bombing by Sudan inside its borders.

Soldiers guard a South Sudanese oil refinery, 2009 (AFP)

Yesterday the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) condemned aerial bombardment of areas hosting Sudanese refugees in South Sudan.

The bombing which took place on Monday in the Upper Nile state reportedly left one child injured and 14 other people missing. Upper Nile borders Blue Nile state in Sudan, where the Khartoum government is engaged in conflict with rebels.

On Wednesday the spokesperson for the French foreign ministry Bernard Valero condemned the air raid saying it not only endangered civilians living “in dramatic situation” but also United Nations (UN) and International Organisation for Migration (IOM) staff working there.

“This aggression is a violation of international humanitarian law and involves the lives of civilians and humanitarian workers. This is unacceptable,” the French official said.

Valero also said that France is “very concerned” about recent decisions “taken unilaterally” by both Khartoum and Juba which “go against the spirit of friendship and cooperation which they had been able to demonstrate from January to July 2011”.

Valero urged both parties to “demonstrate responsibility” and to reach an agreement at theIntergovernmental Authority on Development special summit, based on the African Union High-level Implementation Panel proposals.

Speaking at a press briefing in Juba International airport upon arrival from Addis Ababa on Wednesday, Majak D’Agoot, South Sudan’s deputy minister of defence said the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) was aware that Khartoum is mobilising support for militia groups operating along the borders with South Sudan.

Agoot said South Sudan’s troops are on maximum alert, to counter any Khartoum-backed aggression.

The South Sudan official said the talks he attended in Ethiopia with Khartoum were fruitless because of the reluctance of the Sudanese delegation to engage “in honest and meaningful discussions”.

Khartoum has been confiscating South Sudanese oil as what it considers payment for arrears in unpaid transit fees. Juba considers the charge of around US$32 per barrel in fees suggested by Khartoum as exorbitant, but it is landlocked and currently has no other pipeline, other than the one under Khartoum’s control, which terminates at Port Sudan.

Juba claims Khartoum has “looted” US$815 billion worth of its oil. Khartoum is demanding around US$1 billion in unpaid fees since July 2011.

As a result of dispute South Sudan has stopped output at more than 300 wells and has reduced production at 600 more.

According to the South’s chief negotiator in talks being held in Addis Ababa, Pagan Amum, output is expected to be reduced from 275,000 to 135,000 barrels per day. He also said US$2.6 billions would be disbursed to Sudan within four years after separation and that US$2.8 billion in South Sudanese arrears be forgiven.

As South Sudan relies on oil revenues for 90 per cent of its economy, the prohibitive costliness and time consuming nature of constructing an alternative pipeline through neighbouring Kenya to the coast at Lamu, the stalemate is unlikely to be tenable for long.

Aleu Ayeny Aleu, a member of the National Assembly from Warrap commended the decision to reduce oil production.

“Nothing much has changed. The standoff on oil have not been resolved”, Agoot told journalists on Wednesday in Juba, but expressed South Sudan’s willingness to negotiate “a fair deal” with Khartoum.

While still at the Addis Ababa summit Agoot told Sudan Tribune that his “profound” knowledge of the Sudanese government made the Sudanese defence minister, Abdel-Rahim Mohammed Hussein reluctant to hold discussions with his delegation.

Agoot served as deputy National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) in Khartoum during the interim period, before he was appointed as South Sudan’s deputy defence minister after secession on 9 July 2011.

Agoot was accompanied by the general chief of staff of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, James Hoth Mai.

(ST)

http://www.sudantribune.com/South-Sudan-puts-its-army-on,41406

Enhancing trade: Kenya and South Sudan sign oil pipeline deal
ntvkenya
http://www.ntv.co.ke The government of Kenya has signed an agreement with the government ofSouth Sudan that will allow for the construction of an oil pipeline connecting the two countries. The agreement was signed this morning in Juba.

South Sudan: Dr Marial Receives Report On Restructuring the Ministry of …
AllAfrica.com
He also said the report touched on the case of South Sudanese officials who returned from Khartoum and the Diaspora. Responding to the presentation, Dr Marial said that the report has come at the right time when South Sudan is embarking on a …

South Sudan: Unity State to Screen Workers in Its Payroll
AllAfrica.com
Juba — The unity state government yesterday subjected over 300 workers to investigation in what is attributed to their names appearing twice in the finance payroll. Gideon Gatpat, the state spokesperson revealed this to the Citizen newspaper over …

South Sudan: The Independent Country Between the Rule of Communities and …
AllAfrica.com
In the last part of this article, the author had raised question asked by some citizens of this country about the real rulers of contemporary South Sudan, whether it is the government or the communities. That question was directed to the people of …

South Sudan: The Young Need Sports Especially Football
AllAfrica.com
A few days ago the sports clubs spread throughout South Sudan especially in the capital Juba where filled to their capacities because their members were watching and applauding the opening matches by member countries of Africa Cup of nations.

Aid agencies sound warning in South Sudan
Al Jazeera
Intense tribal conflict in South Sudan’s Jonglei state has resulted in thousands of deaths and many more injuries, despite the launch of one of the most expensive humanitarian interventions in the region’s history, The UN is confident that enough food …

Sudan: South Darfur’s unrest escalates
Sudan Tribune
According to Sudan Tribune’s sources, the protestors are demonstrating against the appointment of the new governor and in favor of reinstating his predecessor, Abdul Hamid Musa Kasha. At least three people were killed in the continued demonstration on …

South Sudanese women call for greater participation in constitutional review
Sudan Tribune
By Ngor Arol Garang January 25, 2012 (JUBA) – A South Sudanese women’s alliance on Wednesday said the National Constitution Review Commission (NCRC) did not fully represent their interests after its swearing ceremony on Tuesday.

Ban: UN Ill-Equipped…
Talk Radio News Service
By Staff|1/25/2012 11:07 PM United Nations peacekeepers in South Sudan don’t have enough resources to prevent acts of violence against the country’s civilian population, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said at a press conference Wednesday outlining a …

South Sudan: Foot-soldiers and armed corruption
The Africa Report
By Geof Magga In its efforts to fight corruption, the South Sudanese government has come up with an ambitious plan to audit all government institutions. But the country’s informal traders have suggested that it might be an impossible task.

Remember South Sudan German Marshall Fund (blog) Add to this volatile mix national elections in the United States, France, and elsewhere and it is easy to forget one of the landmark events of 2011: the July 9 th independence of South Sudan. Moreover, although remembrance of the new nation’s founding …

Two Sudans’ oil dispute deepens as South shuts down wells The Guardian South Sudan official has said it is shutting down more than 900 oil wells after accusing neighbouring Sudan of stealing its oil. Pagan Amum, the secretary general ofSouth Sudan’s ruling party, said the shutdown would have a big impact on the new …