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From: John Ashworth <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 13:53:28 +0300
Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] Fw: The Nuba Mountains war isn’t going away
To: Group <[email protected]>
1. The Nuba Mountains war isn’t going away
August 02, 2011 01:16 AM
By Julie Flint
The Daily Star (Lebanon)
One thing is clear about the new war in the Nuba Mountains region of
South Kordofan, the first war of the shrunken Republic of Sudan
presided over by President Omar al-Bashir: No one outside Sudan knows
how to address it. Most wish it would simply go away – that those
pesky Nuba would put down their arms in the interest of the “larger
peace” between the two Sudans and make the best of living in a
separate, northern state that Bashir has said will have no room for
cultural and ethnic diversity.
That is not going to happen. The determination of the Nuba to fight
against underdevelopment, inequality and marginalization – including
by arms if necessary – has been strengthened both by the strong
showing of the Nuba fighters of the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement/Army (SPLM/A) North in the first two months of the war, and
by the promise of wider military alliances with others opposed to
Khartoum.
Ever since the Khartoum government and the SPLA signed a peace
agreement in 2005, ending two decades of civil war, South Kordofan’s
neighbor, Blue Nile, has been the most peaceful of the areas monitored
by United Nations peacekeepers. Although twinned with South Kordofan
in a special protocol in the agreement, and having many ethnic and
political similarities with it, the SPLA in Blue Nile has so far left
the Nuba to fight alone. That may be about to change. In the last
month, Malik Agar, an SPLA veteran who is now governor of Blue Nile,
has said repeatedly that he cannot sit on his hands for much longer.
He has warned that the Nuba war will spread, igniting a front that
will extend from Darfur to the Ethiopian border, unless agreements
signed with South Kordofan and Blue Nile are honored.
Agar was the key figure in negotiations between the Khartoum
government and SPLM North that produced a new framework agreement for
South Kordofan and Blue Nile just 23 days into the South Kordofan
fighting, raising hopes of a negotiated settlement. Bashir reportedly
sees him as a man with whom he can do business.
If Blue Nile explodes – whether because Khartoum attempts to disarm
the SPLA by force, as it did in South Kordofan, or because Agar
decides to support the Nuba – the SPLM North will be banned in Sudan
and all chance of negotiation will be lost for the foreseeable future.
Blue Nile is of enormous strategic and economic importance:
Three-quarters of all Nile waters enter Sudan through it, and Sudan’s
biggest irrigation schemes depend on the Blue Nile dam at Roseires.
Widened violence could draw in regional actors including South Sudan
and Ethiopia, Blue Nile’s eastern neighbor and early SPLA ally.
Alarm bells should be pealing. They do not appear to be. Instead
Khartoum’s generals believe they can win a showdown in Blue Nile and
have convinced some of their interlocutors that this is indeed the
case. Anyone tending to this belief should revisit Agar’s record on
the battlefield, notably his defense of Kurmuk in May 2001. Outmanned
and outgunned, he ordered a tactical retreat before circling behind
the government forces and attacking them from the rear, destroying
them.
The Sudanese armed forces made a similar miscalculation in South
Kordofan two months ago, and were both surprised and humiliated at
their string of losses to the Nuba SPLA.
Fighting had no sooner erupted in South Kordofan on June 5 than
commentators were pinning labels on it: “ethnic cleansing,”
“extermination,” “genocide.” According to this version of
history-in-the-making, the baddies with pale skins are doing what they
do best – killing Sudanese with black skins – and will only realize
the game is up when white-skinned saviors ride in with bigger guns.
Without question, Bashir’s regime has a proven record of waging brutal
wars against civilians in the name of Islamism and Arabism. But this
is no straightforward repeat of the Nuba jihad of the 1990s or the
Darfur war of the last decade. Politics in post-secession northern
Sudan is driven by a new dynamic, one largely invisible to outsiders
who shun Khartoum’s powerbrokers, because their lawyers prohibit them
from meeting with individuals named by the International Criminal
Court. A new configuration is propelling the new fighting – hinted at
by the SPLM North in a statement in which it cited “the domination …
of the military junta” over the leadership of Bashir’s National
Congress Party (NCP).
The SPLM did not elaborate. But a well-informed source close to the
NCP reports that Sudan’s two most powerful generals went to Bashir on
May 5, five days after 11 soldiers were killed in an SPLA ambush in
Abyei, on South Kordofan’s southwestern border, and demanded powers to
act as they sought fit, without reference to the political leadership.
“They got it,” the source says. “It is the hour of the soldiers – a
vengeful, bitter attitude of defending one’s interests no matter what;
a punitive and emotional approach that goes beyond calculation of
self-interest. The army was the first to accept that Sudan would be
partitioned. But they also felt it as a humiliation, primarily because
they were withdrawing from territory in which they had not been
defeated. They were ready to go along with the politicians as long as
the politicians were delivering – but they had come to the conclusion
they weren’t. Ambushes in Abyei … interminable talks in Doha keeping
Darfur as an open wound … Lack of agreement on oil revenues …”
“It has gone beyond politics,” says one of Bashir’s closest aides. “It
is about dignity.”
This will not be an interpretation of the current conflict accepted by
those who see a genocidal arc stretching from Darfur to South
Kordofan. But it is perhaps something the international community
could reflect upon as it debates how to get negotiations back on track
– even if only in the interest of the “larger peace.”
Julie Flint writes frequently on Sudan for THE DAILY STAR.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily
Star on August 02, 2011, on page 7.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2011/Aug-02/The-Nuba-Mountains-war-isnt-going-away.ashx#axzz1TlQs8nsc
END1
2. Sudan President to hold meeting with SPLM’s Aggar
August 1, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – A high-profile meeting is due to be held
within 48 hours between Sudan’s president Omer Al-Bashir and the
chairman of the armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
(SPLM), Malik Aggar, to discuss containment of military escalation in
the country’s border state of South Kordofan, Sudan Tribune has
learnt.
Sudan’s government reneged on a framework agreement it signed last
month with the SPLM in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on new
political and security arrangements in South Kordofan, which
degenerated into a state of war between Sudan army and SPLM/A fighters
since 6 June.
The deal, which was brokered by the African Union High-Level
Implementation Panel on Sudan (AUHIP), provided for the integration of
SPLA fighters into Sudan army and recognition of the SPLM northern
sector as a “legal political party in Sudan.”
President Al-Bashir later disavowed the deal, publicly faulting his
negotiator and senior presidential assistant Nafi Ali Nafi and citing
objections to the accord’s recognition of the SPLM in north Sudan.
Al-Bashir said the SPLM must conform to the requirements of political
parties’ registration and ordered the army to sustain its military
operations in South Kordofan until it is “purged” and SPLM’s leader in
South Kordofan Abdul Aziz al-Hilu is “arrested.”
Informed sources told Sudan Tribune that Al-Bashir is expected to
arrive within 48 hours in Al-Damazin town, the state capital of the
Blue Nile, to meet Aggar who returned to the state he governs after a
long period of absence.
Sudan Tribune’s sources added that the decisive meeting is expected to
discuss the situation in South Kordofan and ways to end the conflict
there.
The potential meeting of Al-Bashir and Aggar comes two days after Nafi
Ali Nafi, who is also vice-president of Al-Bashir’s ruling National
Congress Party (NCP), appeared to be softening his stance towards the
SPLM, saying in a public rally that his party recognizes the SPLM as
“an entity” in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
He, however, stopped short of saying that the former guerrilla
movement is recognized as a countrywide political party.
On 21 and 22 July, the leadership of the SPLM’s northern sector held a
meeting in South Kordofan and concluded that any future talks with the
NCP over South Kordofan must be conducted through “a third party” and
“outside Sudan.”
Yasir Arman, secretary-general of the SPLM, warned that the NCP’s
attempt to wriggle out of the South Kordofan deal could lead to an
all-out war engulfing all of Sudan’s marginalized peripheries of South
Kordofan, Blue Nile and the already-restive region Darfur.
The fighting in South Kordofan erupted after Sudan army moved to carry
out its earlier threats to disarm SPLA fighters in the area following
the secession of South Sudan.
According to UN agencies, more than 72,000 people fled the fighting
which intensified as Sudan army resorted to the use of aerial
bombardment amid credible reports of ethnic targeting of South
Kordofan’s African Nuba population.
A report produced by the UN Mission in Sudan concluded that
“especially egregious” acts committed by SAF and its allied
paramilitary forces in the course of the conflict amounts to “war
crimes and crimes against humanity.”
(ST)
END2
3. SPLM in South Kordofan slams rumored divisions over war decision
July 31, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
(SPLM) has denied allegations that its armed struggle against Sudan’s
army in South Kordofan state has created rifts within its ranks.
In a press release seen by Sudan Tribune, the SPLM in South Kordofan,
which has been racked by fighting between the SPLM and Sudan army
since 6 June, stressed that its decision to fight a war against Sudan
army and calls for overthrowing the government are broadly supported
by nearly all ethnic components of South Kordofan.
“However, and despite this support, a handful of power-seeking
opportunists in Khartoum…started to blur the position of the SPLM and
create a negative public opinion against the leader of the change
revolution Abdul Aziz Adam Al-Hilu, those include Maj-Gen Daniel Kodi
and [former SPLM’s health minister] Tabita Petrus.”
Kodi, who was the deputy governor of South Kordofan and a senior
commander in the SPLM’s military wing, Sudan People’s Liberation Army
(SPLA) said in an interview on Sunday with the subtly pro-government
daily Al-Ra’y al-Amm that Al-Hilu’s rebellion in South Kordofan had
created divisions within the SPLA.
The former deputy governor accused Al-Hilu of taking a unilateral
decision to engage in war without consulting Nuba leaders. He further
said that there were no justifications or objective reasons to take up
arms in South Kordofan unless the war is justified by “agendas
concerning Al-Hilu as an indifvdiual and not South Kordofan as a
state.”
The SPLM slammed the talk on Al-Hilu’s personal agendas, and called on
the state’s people not to heed “lies and rumors” propagated by the
ruling National Congress Party (NCP).
It went on to announce that the SPLM’s organs in the state would hold
a meeting in the coming days to issue a punitive decision against
anyone who was involved in collaboration and coordination with the
NCP.
(ST)
END3
4. NCP’s Nafi says his party recognizes SPLM in South Kordofan, Blue Nile
July 31, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Nafei Ali Nafei, Vice-President of the
ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Sudan, on Saturday appeared to
be striking a conciliatory tone towards the armed opposition Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), saying his party recognizes the
latter in the country’s flashpoint regions of South Kordofan and Blue
Nile.
On behalf of his government, Nafei signed a framework agreement last
month with the SPLM, the north Sudan’s offshoot of the ruling party in
the newly independent state of South Sudan, to deescalate the
situation in South Kordofan, a north-south border state racked by
fighting between Sudan army and SPLM elements since 6 June.
South Kordofan fighting, which so far displaced more than 72,000 and
killed hundreds according to UN figures, erupted after Sudan army
moved to disarm SPLM-aligned fighters, mostly drawn from the state’s
African Nuba population which largely sided with the South during
Sudan’s north-south second civil wars from 1983-2005.
The agreement was, however, scrapped by the NCP’s chairman and the
country’s president Omer Al-Bashir who publicly faulted his close aide
and objected to the deal’s recognition of the SPLM as “a legal
political party in Sudan,” saying that the lift-wing party must
surrender its arms and conform with the regulations of registering
political parties.
Addressing a public rally on Saturday in Sinja town in the country’s
state of Sinnar, Nafei, said that the NCP recognizes the SPLM as an
entity in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
The NCP stalwart went on to call on the people of the two states to
cooperate and melt into the pot of a united Sudan.
NCP officials have been making contradictory statements towards the
SPLM, with some vowing to sustain the army’s offensive against its
forces in South Kordofan and others calling for dialogue.
SPLM’s officials warned that NCP’s attempts to wriggle out of South
Kordofan deal would serve to aggravate and spread the war to the Blue
Nile.
Under the 2005’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended Sudan’s
north-south war and paved the way for the south’s independence, The
Blue Nile and South Kordofan were given a special status and promised
popular consultations to measure the level of local satisfaction with
the deal implementation.
However, the deal expired with the south’s secession and the popular
consultation process stalled in both states.
(ST)
END4
______________________
John Ashworth
Sudan Advisor
[email protected]
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile)
+249 919 695 362 (Sudan mobile)
+27 82 853 3556 (South Africa mobile)
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This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily
reflect the views of any organisation
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