South Sudan rejects AU oil plan

SINGAPORE Feb 1 (Reuters) – South Sudan’s chief negotiator has rejected African Union-backed proposals that could see it pay up to $6.5 billion to Sudan in the latest attempt to break a deadlock between the two over oil export transit fees, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

The latest draft proposal from the AU foresees the South giving Sudan a direct cash transfer of between $2.6 billion and $5.4 billion, plus transit fees worth up to $1.1 billion, covering the period until the end of 2014, the report said.

The AU set these figures as parameters for discussion, with an exact figure to be decided on within 30 days, it added.

“The AU has lost sight of the principle of mutual economic viability,” Pagan Amum, lead negotiator for the South, was quoted by the Financial TImes as saying.

“We could not sign; they were stealing the oil and obstructing the flow of our oil, and this robbery continues up to today. Now it is not secure for us to put our oil through Sudan because of this state piracy. This is about our economic independence. No country can continue through a country that is hostile.”

South Sudan — which seceded last July under a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war with Khartoum — has shut down its roughly 350,000 barrels per day of oil production in protest after Khartoum started to seize some southern crude to compensate for what it called unpaid fees.

The landlocked new nation took control of about three quarters of the unified country’s roughly 500,000 barrels a day in oil output, but it needs to export its crude through northern pipelines to the Red Sea port of Port Sudan.

Earlier, Amum reiterated South Sudan’s proposal that the country pay a fee of $0.69 per barrel for one of the pipelines and $0.63 per barrel for another. Sudan has publicly stated it wants a fee of $36 per barrel.

Oil provides about 98 percent of South Sudan’s income and is vital to the impoverished country as it tries to develop infrastructure and institutions devastated by a war that killed an estimated 2 million people. (Reporting by Himani Sarkar; Editing by Simon Webb)

http://af.reuters.com/article/sudanNews/idAFL4E8D10LA20120201

South Sudan rejects AU oil plan
Financial Times
South Sudan’s chief negotiator has rejected African Union-backed proposals that could see it pay up to $6.5bn to Sudan in the latest attempt to break a vicious deadlock between the two over sharing oil revenues. The impasse, which reached a head at the …

Israel Says It Will Deport South Sudanese
ABC News
Now that their country has gained independence, thousands of migrants from South Sudan must leave Israel or face deportation, Israel’s Interior Ministry said Tuesday. Some 7000 South Sudanese are believed to be in Israel, part of a larger influx of …

Q+A: Can buyers of seized Sudanese crude get into legal trouble?
Reuters UK
By Florence Tan and Osamu Tsukimori | SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Buyers of South Sudanese oil seized by Sudan may escape legal trouble although Khartoum may get dragged into a prolonged arbitration battle for selling crude at steep discounts, lawyers said …

UN scales up food assistance for more than 80000 people in South Sudan
UN News Centre
An internally displaced mother and her children among IDPs in South Sudan. Photo: UNMISS/Gideon Pibor The United Nations World Food Programme announced today that it will scale up its assistance to reach 80000 people affected by the recent escalation …

South Sudan’s Development: How Will It Be Financed ?
Voice of America
January 31, 2012 South Sudan’s Development: How Will It Be Financed ? Panelists at a recent VOA-sponsored public discussion answer audience questions Nation building is never easy. And for South Sudan, it is an even more difficult task given the …

In South Sudan, a wave of tribal killings tests fragile independence

Sudarsan Raghavan/WASHINGTON POST – Kayoi Maze, 42, was separated from her two daughters, ages 18 and 16. Her neighbors later informed her that the fighters had abducted them. “I don’t expect to ever see them again,” said Maze, who like hundreds of villagers returned to the city Likuangole over the weekend to receive food aid from the UN’s World Food Program. ”At least I have two daughters left.”

By Sudarsan Raghavan, Published: January 30

LIKUANGOLE, South Sudan— Nothing is intact in this town, save the memories. Every hut was burned to the ground. The only health clinic and the only school were torched. Hundreds were killed or injured. Thousands more fled.The United Nations and South Sudan’s government had combat forces in this town at the time of the assault late last year. But witnesses say they did nothing to stop the killings.

South Sudan map: Likuangole; Jonglei state; Pibor; Duk Padiet; Likuangole; Nuer tribe; Murle tribe

Gallery

 South Sudan has become an independent nation through a peace process championed by successive U.S. presidents but still beset by lingering tensions from years of war.

When the attackers reached a village nearby, they shot Nyandit Allan, 28, twice in her left leg and again in the face, then slit the throats of her two stepsons. “They were singing as they left,” said Allan, who is now recuperating in a clinic.Six months after celebrating independence,the world’s newest nation is grappling with a virus of tribal violence. In many ways, the inevitable has happened, as ethnic and political tensions exploded after being suppressed by the promise of separation from the north, after a decades-long war against rulers in Khartoum.

The United States and its allies have spent billions to help South Sudan become a stable, pro-Western pillar in a region plagued by terrorism and militant Islam. But now the intensifying attacks have ignited tribal violence and threaten to undermine a government already facing a long list of daunting challenges.

Stopping the violence “would demand a very, very significant military operation, and the government also would have to move significant forces to make that happen,” said Hilde Johnson, the head of the U.N. mission in South Sudan.

The state of Jonglei has long been gripped by poverty, ethnic and political tensions, a massive influx of weapons and a history of cattle raiding between the Nuer and Murle tribes. Last year, the United Nations documented 208 attacks that displaced more than 90,000 people.

But the current bloodletting appears far more vicious and widespread. Once, only cattle camps were raided. Now, entire villages and towns are being razed, infrastructure destroyed.

“Our clinic is full of women and children,” said Karel Janssens, field coordinator for theaid agency Doctors Without Borders in the town of Pibor, where many of the wounded have sought refuge.

Torn apart by revenge

Since the attacks by the Lou Nuer, a subgroup, on this area in late December and early January, the Murle have risen up. They have marauded Nuer areas across Jonglei. Two weeks ago, 47 people were killed in the village of Duk Padiet. Aid agencies have launched a massive humanitarian effort to help those harmed by the raids, which the United Nations now numbers 120,000 people.

On Dec. 17, a Nuer militia known as the White Army announced that it would protect the Nuer population and their cattle from the Murle because the government was not doing enough.

The militia, which has a fundraising and media arm in the United States, said it was also seeking revenge for the massacre of 700 Nuer by Murle warriors in August, a month after South Sudan declared independence.

In a telephone interview, Gai Bol Thong, a Nuer spokesman who lives in Seattle, said his group had raised $45,000 from supporters in the United States and Canada for food and other “humanitarian” needs of the fighters.

Sudarsan Raghavan/WASHINGTON POST – Kayoi Maze, 42, was separated from her two daughters, ages 18 and 16. Her neighbors later informed her that the fighters had abducted them. “I don’t expect to ever see them again,” said Maze, who like hundreds of villagers returned to the city Likuangole over the weekend to receive food aid from the UN’s World Food Program. ”At least I have two daughters left.”

On Dec. 25, the White Army e-mailed a statement vowing to “wipe out the entire Murle tribe on the face of the earth.”The next day, 6,000 Lou Nuer fighters attacked Likuangole.

They stole thousands of heads of cattle. They destroyed all the boreholes, eliminating the main source of water here. Groups of warriors targeted Murle men, while others tracked down women and children who had fled into the thick bush.Kayoi Maze, 42, was separated from her two daughters, ages 18 and 16. Her neighbors later told her that the fighters had abducted them.

“I don’t expect to ever see them again,” said Maze, who like hundreds of villagers returned to Likuangole to receive aid from the U.N. World Food Program. “At least I have two daughters left.”

Local officials estimate that 850 people were killed in Likuangole and nearby villages, including 660 women and children. An estimated 150 women and children were abducted. An additional 2,250 people were killed in surrounding areas. But neither the United Nations nor the government have confirmed those figures.

In Likuangole, two human skulls lie on a patch of charred ground near the U.N. base. The smell of rotting flesh still wafts through the air. In graffiti covering the walls of the school, the Lou Nuer fighters have declared the town part of their territory.

“We have done this to you,” reads one message, “because you have done it to us.”

‘The U.N. failed us’

When the gunmen attacked, Achiro Manibon remembered running in one direction as his three wives and four children ran the other way. They were all shot dead.

Manibon, 35, had expected the United Nations combat force and South Sudanese troops stationed in the town to fend off the attackers. But they didn’t fire a weapon, he said. Across this area, people feel betrayed by their military and the U.N. peacekeepers, which has a mandate to use force, if needed, to protect civilians.

For weeks, the peacekeepers had tracked columns of Lou Nuer fighters making their way toward Likuangole and Pibor. Yet they dispatched only 400 of their 3,000-member force.

Simon Ali, a local administrator, said he brought five disabled people to the U.N. base for protection. The peacekeepers told him to put them in a hut about five yards from the base, he said. When the Lou Nuer arrived, they fired into the hut. Then, they torched it with the people inside, Ali said.

“The U.N. failed us,” he said. “We asked for their help and they did nothing.”

Johnson, the head of the U.N. mission in South Sudan, said U.N. forces in Likuangole had evacuated 41 people, mostly disabled and elderly, before the attack, “but we cannot rule out there might have been some civilians left.” She added that she was not aware of any incidents in which U.N. forces did not provide assistance to civilians seeking refuge.

In Likuangole, there’s also deep mistrust of the government. Many senior officials, including Vice President Reik Machar, are Nuer, and Lou Nuer soldiers number in the thousands in the military and are unlikely to intervene, residents said.

Col. Philip Aguer, a South Sudanese military spokesman, said that only 500 soldiers were in Likuangole at the time of the attack, and that it would have been like “sentencing your soldiers to death” if they had tried to fight the 6,000 Lou Nuer warriors.

“The real reason why they did nothing is because the force was not capable of confronting the attackers,” Aguer said. “Not because many are Nuer.”

Today, roughly 1,500 U.N. peacekeepers — half the force — are patrolling Jonglei state. But it has become even more difficult to stop attacks. The Murle fighters are moving in small groups, staging swift stealth attacks, making the violence harder to monitor and predict. “You could see a pattern of where they are moving, but we, with all our helicopters, are not able to detect that they are going to that village or not that,” Johnson said.

Back in the United States, Gai Bol Thong is continuing to raise funds for the White Army. If the government cannot protect the Nuer community, “we will do some revenge against the Murle,” he warned.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/in-south-sudan-a-wave-of-tribal-killings/2012/01/27/gIQAtxogdQ_story_1.html

South Sudan official: Cattle raid kills 70; nation struggles to contain internal violence

By Associated Press, Published: January 30

JUBA, South Sudan — An official in South Sudan says more than 70 people were killed in a recent cattle raid.Interior Minister Alison Manani Magaya said Monday that a Nuer tribe from Unity state attacked a Dinka community in neighboring Warrap state Saturday. He says 70 people were wounded and attackers took more than 4,000 cattle.

The Warrap attack is the latest in a series of cattle raids since December. Ongoing raids between Nuer, Murle and Dinka communities have killed hundreds. The United Nations estimates over 120,000 people have been affected in Jonglei state alone.Magaya said authorities had not found any links connecting the attacks in Warrap to violence in Jonglei.

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in July and is struggling to contain internal violence that has plagued the region for years.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/south-sudan-official-cattle-raid-kills-70-nation-struggles-to-contain-internal-violence/2012/01/30/gIQAwiiAcQ_story.html

Laptops for South Sudan

Retired naval lieutenant who served with UN hopes to help schools

 By Richard Watts, Times Colonist January 31, 2012

In newly independent South Sudan, where roads are dirt, electricity comes from portable generators and people live in earthen huts, there is still the Internet.

That’s why Esquimalt resident Peter Dibben, a recently retired lieutenant with the Royal Canadian Navy, is looking for cast-off laptop computers he can transport to a South Sudan high school when he heads there this month, so students and teachers can go online.

“I would really like to donate half a dozen laptops that could really make a big difference to people in that school,” Dibben said.

Dibben, 49, spent about six months in the newly independent Republic of South Sudan as an unarmed UN military observer.

He said he got the idea for the laptop-computer donations while talking to the headmaster of a high school in South Sudan.

The country officially became an independent state July 9, following a referendum the previous January. That independence followed many years of civil war.

Dibben said despite the widespread poverty and lack of infrastructure, many towns and cities have erected cellular telephone towers.

Laptop computers, equipped with cellular modems and charged up with portable generators, could provide some Internet access.

“You’re not going to download a movie on it, but you can use it if you want to access email or get some information for a school project,” he said.

Anyone with a laptop to donate can contact Dibben at dibben.pw@hotmail.com. You need to act fast, however: Dibben is due to leave for Sudan from Ontario Feb. 14.

A divorced father of two grown children, and now a grandfather of three, Dibben is committed to paying his own way to South Sudan. Besides his request for laptops, his principal aim is to assist in setting up a co-operative for processing a nut grown in Sudan.

While there, Dibben said, he realized that one of the few resources South Sudan has is a supply of a locally grown commodity called shea nuts.

Also called lulu nuts by the Sudanese, the nuts produce an oil that is valued in cosmetics sold around the world.

He said he hopes to act as a middleman, linking funding sources in North America with an African agency that works to set up local co-operatives to operate processing plants to extract the oil from the shea nuts.

Dibben is already online with one potential funding agency in Vancouver.

Ultimately, he believes the co-operatives might spawn other benefits.

“I can see whole bunches of schools there so moms can bring their sons and daughters to provide a cheap, or even free, education while the mothers are working,” he said.

Dibben said his motivation stems in part from his Christian ethic, but it’s mostly just something he wants to do.

“I don’t have to do this but it’s like something God is calling me to do, and it’s something I just want to do,” he said.

rwatts@timescolonist.com

Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Laptops+South+Sudan/6077003/story.html#ixzz1l3Tf6sRn

South Sudan’s oil cutoff: brilliant negotiating strategy, or suicide?

Guest blogger Aly-Khan Satchu sees a larger proxy war in the current standoff between Sudan and South Sudan over dividing revenues from South Sudan’s oil. 

By Aly-Khan Satchu, Guest blogger / January 30, 2012

• 

South Sudanese express their support as President Salva Kiir declared a halt on all oil operations in South Sudan, in Juba January 23. The Republic of South Sudan in their sitting on Monday decided unanimously to halt all oil operation in South Sudan immediately.

Isaac Billy/UN/REUTERS

NAIROBI, KENYA

The current stand off between Sudan and a newly independent South Sudan made me recall ananecdote told by Henry Kissinger, after a series of negotiations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad‘s father, the late President Hafez al-Assad.

South Sudan’s top negotiator, Pagan Amum told reporters in Addis Ababa Saturday: “Tomorrow the [oil] shutdown will be complete and what will be remaining to be done the day after is finishing the cleaning and flushing of facilities.” South Sudan is shutting down its oil production, last put by officials at 350,000 barrels per day in November. Approximately 99 percent of the new state’s income is from the sale of oil. 

Earlier in the week, South Sudan’s Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin announced that South Sudan and Kenya had signed a memorandum of understanding to build an oil pipeline to the Kenyan port of Lamu. Construction of the pipeline will begin “as soon as sources of funding are made available,” which should take about a month, he said.

Minister Benjamin is reckoning that the pipeline could be completed in 10 months. That’s a bullish call. The biggest problem is surely the sky-high risk of asymmetric guerrilla-type sabotage. I would think it’s highly likely. Therefore, insurance for the pipeline might well prove punitive. However, the point remains that we in Kenya have an embedded geopolitical advantage in this region, that being the route to the sea. It is like the jugular vein for many of our East African neighbors.

Neither Juba or Khartoum are ranked AAA by credit rating agencies. Khartoum has lost a great chunk of their revenues. The South, meanwhile, can hardly afford to lose the cash flow that comes from the sale of its 350,000 barrels per day. And that’s why I started with Henry Kissinger‘s description, “I had even known negotiators who put one foot over the edge, in effect threatening their own suicide.”

Now, there is a back story to this. You see, through 2011, Sudan provided China with 5 percent of its total oil imports. You will recall that 35,000 Chinese workers were evacuated out of Libya in nine days last year and China was rolled back and right out of Libya. Not so long ago, President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped US forces to help regional forces ostensibly to “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony.

Then in January this year, President Barack Obama issued this memorandum.

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 503(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and section 3(a)(1) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended, I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and defense services to the Republic of South Sudan will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace,” said the official text of Obama’s decision.

It seems to me Sudan has become the epicenter of the US and China’s collision in Africa and that we are watching a 21st-century, high-stakes proxy war. I have to surmise that the US is underwriting Salva’s overdraft, what with all these demobilized soldiers roaming around Juba, it would be suicide to have them unpaid for any length of time. I wonder who is underwriting Bashir? Maybe, he is calling in favors in Libya?

Aly-Khan Satchu is the CEO of the East African financial portal http://www.rich.co.ke and can be followed on Twitter @alykhansatchu

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http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2012/0130/South-Sudan-s-oil-cutoff-brilliant-negotiating-or-suicide/(page)/2

China denies that any of its 29 workers abducted in Sudan have been freed

BEIJING — China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned a leading Sudanese diplomat to express “deep shock” over the abduction of 29 Chinese workers after an attack in a volatile region of the country.The summons is a sign of growing Chinese concern over the fate of the workers, three days after they were taken by militants in the South Kordofan region.

Sudanese state media reported Monday that 14 of them had been freed, but the official Xinhua News Agency and China Daily newspaper said all 29 were still being held.“The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting overseas Chinese nationals. We felt deep shock over this abduction incident and are deeply concerned over the safety of the 29 Chinese,” Vice Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng was quoted as saying in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.China hopes Sudan will “keep in mind the overall situation of bilateral friendship” and ensure their swift release, Xie told Sudanese Charge d’Affaires Omer Eisa Ahmed, according to the statement.It quoted Eisa as pledging Sudan’s full support.The summons was a rare public sign of tension in China’s close political and economic relations with Sudan, which center on exchanging Chinese infrastructure projects for access to Sudanese oil.

That followed the dispatch earlier Tuesday of a group of Chinese security experts to assist in the rescue work.

A statement from the workers’ company, Sinohydro Corp., said that it and the Chinese Embassy would “spare no effort in ensuring the personal safety of those abducted and rescuing them.”

Xinhua said 47 Chinese workers were caught in the attack in the South Kordofan region of Sudan. It said 29 were captured and the other 18 fled, and that one of those who fled remains missing.

Sudan’s state-run SUNA news agency said the attack took place near Abbasiya town, 390 miles (630 kilometers) south of Khartoum.

Sudanese officials have blamed the attack on the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, a branch of a guerrilla movement that has fought various regimes in Khartoum for decades. Its members hail from a minority ethnic group now in control of much of South Sudan, which became the world’s newest country only six months ago in a breakaway from Sudan.

Sudan has accused South Sudan of arming pro-South Sudan groups in South Kordofan. The government of South Sudan says the accusations are a smoke screen intended to justify a future invasion of the South.

China has sent large numbers of workers to potentially unstable regions such as Sudan. Last year it was forced to send ships and planes to help with the emergency evacuation of 30,000 of its citizens from the fighting in Libya.

China has used its diplomatic clout to defend Sudan and its longtime leader, Omar al-Bashir. Recently, it has also sought to build good relations with leaders from the south.

South Sudan and Sudan are in bitter dispute over oil, which is produced primarily in South Sudan but runs through Sudanese pipelines for export.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/china-denies-that-any-of-its-29-workers-abducted-in-sudan-have-been-freed/2012/01/30/gIQAA8cedQ_story.html

China denies that any of its 29 workers abducted in Sudan have been freed
Washington Post
The workers were abducted Saturday by militants in a remote region in the country’s south.Sudanese state media reported Monday that 14 of them had been freed, but the official Xinhua News Agency and China Daily newspaper said all 29 were still being …

Laptops for South Sudan
Victoria Times Colonist
By Richard Watts, Times Colonist January 31, 2012 2:18 AM In newly independent South Sudan, where roads are dirt, electricity comes from portable generators and people live in earthen huts, there is still the Internet. That’s why Esquimalt resident …

Promote good relations between South Sudan media and security organs
Sudan Tribune
Recently South Sudan has come under international scrutiny after it detained journalists without charges and in inhumane conditions. A strong demand was made for the release of the journalists and indeed the journalists were released without any formal …

South Sudan official: Cattle raid kills 70; nation struggles to contain …
Washington Post
JUBA, South Sudan — An official in South Sudan says more than 70 people were killed in a recent cattle raid. Interior Minister Alison Manani Magaya said Monday that a Nuer tribe from Unity state attacked a Dinka community in neighboring Warrap state …

Marie Stopes International—South Sudan Abortion Clinic in Juba
Borglobe
By Dennis After 21 years of civil war in Sudan where millions of lives were lost, we would imagine that the most logical programme for the world’s youngest nation—South Sudan, would be one that promotes population growth to replace the lost lives…

JobsWASH Manager in South Sudan
Reuters AlertNet
Ensure Medair South Sudan guidelines, BA and HAP-I guidelines ensuring the standardised formats are used and guidelines followed in liaison with the M&E Officer. Support the implementation of projects in accordance with Medair, donor, Sudanese and …

Free press euphoria fading fast in South Sudan
Reuters
By Ulf Laessing | JUBA (Reuters) – Dengdit Ayok’s dream of a free press in Africa’s newest nation dissolved when he was arrested and beaten up after writing about the wedding of South SudanesePresident Salva Kiir’s daughter. In an article published in …

Israel to deport South Sudanese
Fox News
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Interior Ministry says thousands of people from South Sudan must leave or face deportation. Spokeswoman Sabine Haddad says since the Southern Sudanese have an independent state, they will no longer be given protected status in …

South Sudan – Fleeing to a Safer Place
Reuters AlertNet
BOR, South Sudan/GENEVA, 30 January 2012 – Manyok is the father of a Dinka family living in Jonglei State, South Sudan. He married his wife Rebecca two years ago and they have a one-year-old child. Rebecca’s father died many years ago, so when Manyok …

In South Sudan, a wave of tribal killings tests fragile independence
Washington Post
LIKUANGOLE, SOUTH SUDAN — Nothing is intact in this town, save the memories. Every hut was burned to the ground. The only health clinic and the only school were torched. Hundreds were killed or injured. Thousands more fled. The United Nations and …

UN urges Sudan, South Sudan to pull out of Abyei border region
Monsters and Critics.com
New York – The United Nations Monday called for Sudan and South Sudan to withdraw their security forces and police from the border region of Abyei because they interfered with the return of war-displaced people and nomadic migration.

Why the beleaguered hospitals of South Sudan are out for blood
The Guardian
A small fridge in the corner of Juba teaching hospital’s laboratory is the only blood bank in South Sudan. The world’s newest country has some of the worst health statistics in the world. Health workers say a lack of blood is the main cause of …

Sudan, South Sudan to resume oil talks on February 10
Press TV
The recent breakdown in the talks between Sudan and South Sudan in the High Level negotiations in Addis Ababa was a big shock for Sudan and the mediators. Oil was a major setback to the continued mediation for peace by the neighboring countries of …

S. Africa’s Month from Sudan to Syria, Missing Annex & Robben Island, AU Vote Inner City Press South Africa’s month atop the Council began with the UN in South Sudan failing to get “lethal assets to dissuade” attacks to Pibor, where an untold number of Murle people were killed. But Sudan quickly became overshadowed by Syria, to the extent that …

President Kiir: The New Year brings new hope of building a peaceful nation

President Kiir: The New Year brings new hope of building a peaceful nation

The President of the Republic, Salva Kiir Mayardit has extended New Year wishes to all the citizens of the country. In his message to the people of South Sudan as a free nation on Sunday, President Kiir called on the South Sudanese to start the New Year by reflecting on their past to inform the future. The message indicated that a new year brings new hopes, challenges and new opportunities and that the people of the country need to build a peaceful, prosperous, secure, and stable South Sudan.

President Kiir said it is unfortunate that as the country celebrates this new beginning, there are still tribal conflicts going on due to cattle rustling, pinpointing the current conflict in Jonglei state between the Lou Nuer and the Murle tribes.

According to the message of President Kiir, the senseless behaviour of raiding each other’s cattle can no longer be tolerated and should stop with immediate effect. The message puts it plainly that the cattle are a national resource, culture and pride and should therefore not be turned into a curse resource.

President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

President Kiir called upon the youth of Lou Nuer who are currently occupying Murle villages claiming they are perusing their stolen cattle, abducted children and women to leave the Murle villages and return to the Lou Nuer villages urging that the Government must be the one to pursue the stolen cattle, abducted children and women. He also called on the Murle tribe to desist themselves from the culture of stealing cattle and abducting children and women of their neighbours and ensure that the cattle they had taken and the children and women they abducted are returned to joint their families.

The President strongly directs the Lou Nuer to move out from the Murle villages and has equally ordered the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) to move in and protect the civilians. He also warned politicians and community leaders encouraging this lawlessness act through cattle rustling to stop. President Kiir was blunt that any politician or community leader whose statement would be construed as encouraging ethnic hostility will be made accountable.

President Kiir called on the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations to work hand in hand to enhance the humanitarian assistance and to cooperate with the state and national authorities in facilitating the return of the abducted children and women back to their families and ensure that the stolen cattle are also returned to their rightful owners.

SPLM-N in Talk with the Chinese Government to Secure the Release of the 29 Chinese Workers

Dear All,
Please find attached and enclosed hereunder our latest statement.
Thanks
Anwar Elhaj
SPLMN Representative to the US

The SPLM-N Establishes Contact with China and Forms a Three-Person Committee to Secure the Safety and the Evacuation of the Chinese Workers Out of the War Zone

On January 30, 2012, an SPLM-N delegation led by its Chairman, Malik Agar, along with the Secretary General, Yasir Arman, and the Treasurer, Ramdan Hassan, met with the Chinese Ambassador, Xie Xiaoyan, and two colleagues, who were instructed by the Chinese government to follow-up on the issue of 29 Chinese workers and technicians who were constructing a road in the Abassya-rashad area where the Sudan government laid a failed ambush against the SPLA-N. That road, for now, will be used to support the National Congress’ genocidal military effort. Ambassador Xie stressed the concern of China for the safety of the Chinese workers and for their return home to their families and that China is not part of the conflict in Sudan but rather the workers came for development projects in Sudan. It is worth mentioning that before the meeting, we had established contact with Commander Abdel Aziz el-Hilu, the Deputy Chairperson of the SPLM-N, who said that the Chinese are in safe hands with SPLA-N; that he already gave strict instructions to secure the safety of the Chinese and their return back to China from the war zone; and he warned the National Congress forces that they should not target the Chinese area by aerial bombardment or ground attack. If they did so, they would be held responsible especially after the meeting with the Chinese Ambassador. The official spokesperson of the National Congress forces mentioned to the press that they are sending forces to attack the SPLA-N area where the Chinese are located and that came after the continuous lies by him and Ahmed Haroun regarding the Chinese workers.

In the meeting, the SPLM-N leadership stressed the following:

1) The SPLM-N will do everything possible to secure the safety of the Chinese workers and it will cooperate fully with the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party to ensure the safety of the Chinese citizens and to secure their return home out of the war zone especially as it is the time of the Chinese New Year celebration and the SPLM-N would like those workers to be with their families during this time.

2) The SPLM-N requests from China to relocate Chinese citizens outside of the war zone in South Kordofan and Blue Nile and the SPLM-N welcomes the contribution of China in development after the war ends.

3) The SPLM-N delegation gave background of the present conflict in the North and about the “Northern Question” to the Chinese delegation and explained in detail the aggression of the National Congress against the SPLM-N and their decision to ban the organization, the killing and wounding of hundreds of civilian populations in the aggression, arbitrary arrest of its leaders and sentencing some of them to death, continuous barbaric attacks from air and land which resulted in the displacement and refuge of hundreds of thousands of civilians inside and outside of Sudan in South Kordofan and Blue Nile and in the neighboring countries of the Republic of South Sudan and Ethiopia. The SPLM-N calls upon China to contribute to the humanitarian operation and to ask Khartoum government to open safe corridors for humanitarian operations and access, which has been denied by the National Congress leadership, and to call again upon China to support the SPLM-N’s demand of an international investigation on the war crimes; to stop the genocide by Khartoum and the impunity which encourages more crimes against Sudanese people; and to support the demand of the SPLM-N of a holistic approach that will end the tragedy and misery of the Sudanese people and bring a just peace to Sudan. Likewise, the SPLM-N asked the Chinese delegation to convey to Khartoum that they should stop any military operations in the area where the Chinese are present until their safe evacuation.

4) The SPLM-N leadership has formed a three-person committee with Neroun Philip as the Chairperson and Hishim Wrta from the SPLM-N humanitarian wing and Arnu Ngtullu Loddi, the official spokesperson of the SPLM-N, to follow-up and to secure the safety of the Chinese workers and to evacuate them in full coordination with the Chinese Government.

The Ambassador of China expressed the appreciation of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Government of the SPLM-N’s understanding and cooperation and the need to continue the dialogue and the relations between the two.

Yasir Arman
SPLM-N Secretary General
January 31st, 2012