---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 11:35 AM Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] Heglig/Panthou fighting continues To: Group <[email protected]>
As the titles of articles 1 and 2, below, says, Sudan and South Sudan are at war. However, I still remain optimistic that it will not progress beyond a limited (albeit bloody) border war and that eventually the two sides will come back to negotiations. The statement by a prominent NCP politician that, "we should not have [allowed them to have] self-determination and the referendum" (article 2, below) underlines the very reason why South Sudanese and other marginalised peoples of Sudan are fighting - because the ruling class does not allow them to exercise their basic rights. Following my comment on Global Witness' statement that Heglig is "clearly within the boundaries of Sudan's current administrative borders" which I circulated on 14th April, Global Witness asked me if they could clarify their position. I don't usually circulate responses, but in terms of changing the international discourse on Heglig from Khartoum's narrative to the South Sudanese narrative, I think this clarification is important. It demonstrates how easily extraneous factors such as the PCA ruling on Abyei or the administrative status of oil fields can draw attention away from the real issue of the disputed 1956 border. See no 7, below. The BBC article (article 4, below), sums up the confusion when it says, "Heglig... is internationally accepted to be part of Sudanese territory - although the border area is yet to be demarcated." Yet if the border has not been demarcated, how can the international community accept that a disputed town is on one side or the other of the un-demarcated border? Any such judgements are premature and risk undermining meaningful negotiations about the border, and thus undermining prospects for peace. John BEGIN 1. Amid a trail of corpses, little doubt that Sudan, South Sudan are now at war By Alan Boswell | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Monday, April 16, 2012 HEGLIG, Disputed Sudan — Nine months after Sudan split into two nations in search of a peace brokered by the United States, it is now clear that the two sides are at war. Diplomats discussing the armed conflict talk of skirmishes and dustups, but a visit to this border region shows that what is taking place here is no accidental exchange of fire by troops confused about where the border lies. Instead, what’s happening is a headlong mobilization involving not just thousands of Sudan’s and South Sudan’s best forces and heaviest equipment, but heavily armed rebels from the distant Darfur region fighting alongside the South Sudanese troops. Whether an emergency peace plan could curb the escalation remains to be seen. But neither side is talking to the other, and the mood here is weighted with the sober intensity of wartime. On Sunday evening in a looted Sudanese garrison in Heglig, South Sudanese generals drew military positions in the sand with a curtain rod. They were expecting an imminent counteroffensive by Sudanese troops. Soldiers stood by, twitching, on edge. Suddenly, missiles rained in, and artillery pounded the earth behind. "We are under attack," yelled South Sudan’s Maj. Gen. Mangar Buong, the commander. Troops scurried, trucks spun out. The international community has condemned the fighting and has called on South Sudan to withdraw. But its leader, Salva Kiir, has publicly refused to do so. The fighting started last week on the road to Heglig, an oil outpost with a military base that had long been controlled by Sudan. The two sides faced off at a de facto border point marked now only by the start of a miles-long trail north of rotting corpses and feasting birds. Who fired first is unclear, but from there, the fight spread northward to Heglig, which fell to the South Sudanese army a week ago. Heglig now is a reeking graveyard of carnage. Two destroyed tanks sit on the road. Scraps cover the red dirt and debris floats in the dry wind. Battered signs proclaiming the Chinese-led oil consortium that worked here poke above heaps of loot from its offices _ chairs, file cabinets, TVs, refrigerators _ waiting to be hauled south as bounty. Meanwhile, hundreds of South Sudanese soldiers stream up the road in large trucks to join the fight as Sudanese war planes hunt from above, pummeling the ground with bombs and rockets. The South Sudanese army is using the captured Sudanese garrison in Heglig as a forward operating base. Soldiers pick through piles of clothes and half-finished meals while peeking at the sky in fear of the Sudanese planes above. Stores of weapons were left behind, including crates of anti-personnel mines, banned under a treaty Sudan ratified in 2003. The conflict is not new. Ever since British colonialism handed power to Sudan’s northern, Arab elite in the 1950s, war between the two sides has been an off-and-on affair. But that war was supposed to have ended with the creation last year of South Sudan as an independent nation _ at least, that was the hope of the U.S. and Western allies who brokered the 2005 peace deal that gave South Sudan the right to split away. Instead, the splitting of Sudan now appears only to have turned an internal war into an international one, with much more firepower on all sides. The new dimensions of this old conflict are starkly evident on the front lines. The South Sudanese army is no longer the guerrilla force of old, but sports its own tanks, anti-aircraft weapons and sovereign land. It’s joined by rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement group, who swooped in from Darfur laden with vehicles and heavy weapons, some likely from Libya. The Darfur rebels have been fighting against the Sudanese government for years and have joined this new front with gusto. Their trucks are scrawled in Arabic and mounted with heavy weaponry, including one large anti-aircraft gun. "JEM oyee!" yelled one fighter in a green tank top and dirtied white turban as he pulled to a stop, beer can in one hand and steering wheel in the other. A machine gun was mounted on the passenger seat, in front of his boyish sidekick. The alliance with the Darfur group raises questions about South Sudan’s plan and how far it intends to press the battle. Brig. Gen. Makal Kuol Deng, in command of Heglig, said he did not know what the end goal was. "If they (headquarters) say go ahead, we go ahead. If they say stop, we stop," he said. Other South Sudanese military officials say that they have no intention of pushing far north, into what they consider proper Sudanese territory, and only want to defend their border. But the presence of the JEM rebels from Darfur, who are seeking to overthrow the government of Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, suggests otherwise. JEM and a weaker Darfur rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army, have joined up with South Sudan-aligned rebels in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. Together, the rebel alliance calls itself the Sudan Revolutionary Force. The Sudanese army is better armed, but it seems drawn thin and disillusioned. In the Nuba Mountains, the rebels have been making surprising gains against the government forces. Here, it appears that the Sudanese army withdrew suddenly without a spirited fight. There is no foreseeable endgame. The one hope for peace is that neither side can afford war for long. Landlocked South Sudan shut down its oil production in January, unable to reach an export deal with Sudan. Now, with Heglig’s oilfields shut down as well, Sudan, too, is facing a currency crisis. Logic and sober analysis, however, overlook the depth of bitterness felt by both sides and the comfort with which a population that barely knows what peacetime means accepts violence and destruction. Careening down the road back southward, the South Sudanese soldiers pointed at the corpses outside, dozens of Sudanese soldiers who’d died in battle. Stripped of boots and valuables, denied a Muslim burial, they decay out in the open. The air reeks of death. "Jellaba," the South Sudanese say, using derisive slang. (Boswell is a McClatchy special correspondent. His reporting is underwritten in part by a grant from Humanity United, a California-based foundation that focuses on human rights issues.) http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/04/16/145397/amid-a-trail-of-corpses-little.html END1 2. Sudan ‘At War’ With Neighbor, Says Ruling Party Official Peter Clottey VoA April 16, 2012 A prominent member of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) says the country is officially in a state of war with South Sudan. Rabie Abdelati Obeid condemned as unacceptable the “illegal invasion” of its territory after forces from South Sudan seized the key disputed oil town of Heglig. Obeid’s comments came after Sudan’s parliament unanimously voted to declare South Sudan an “enemy.” He said the people of the Republic of Sudan assign the same status to South Sudan’s ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). “They are now angry,” he said, “since the invasion of Heglig…,” where “the Sudanese Armed Forces are now chasing the remaining rebels … from corner to corner.” He says the government should take as tough a stance toward Juba as has Sudan’s national assembly. Obeid said the country’s southern neighbor continues to foment trouble by refusing to withdraw from the disputed border town it seized. “Their language is a language of war,” said Obeid. “How can we talk to those people in the language of peace, when they are against peace and stability? And they have now intentionally invaded an area which doesn’t belong to them.” Violence has escalated along Sudan and South Sudan's border despite the United Nations Security Council’s concerns about increasing conflict between the two neighbors. Obeid said South Sudan has failed to abide by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which effectively ended decades of war between the north and south. “They are not respecting the CPA, and they don’t understand [it]. Their mind is actually oriented to war…and their culture is completely, different from a culture of peace,” said Obeid. “There is no way now for talks unless we clean them out of the [Heglig] region...They started war; they invaded our area, and they distracted our localities. There is no way for any diplomacy.” South Sudan said it will only withdraw from the oil town if the United Nations intervenes. The African Union, which was helping mediate talks between the two neighboring countries, condemned south Sudan’s occupation of the town. Obeid denied accusations that Sudan’s army uses Heglig as a base to launch attacks on unarmed civilians. “If we want to do so, we should not have [allowed them to have] self-determination and the referendum,” he said, in reference to the ballot last year in which mostly Christian and black southerners voted to separate from the predominantly Arab and Muslim Republic of Sudan. “Now we have clear evidence that they violated the peace, they violated the CPA, they invaded our area, they have committed a lot of mistakes and atrocities [and] they have caused a state of instability and insecurity. [Theirs is] is the behavior of rebels, not …of a government.” http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Sudan-At-War-With-Neighbor-Says-Ruling-Party-Official--147678495.html END2 3. Sudan parliament calls South an "enemy" Mon Apr 16, 2012 8:28pm GMT * Khartoum parliament urges quick recapture of oilfield * Border clashes raise spectre of relapse into war * South Sudan says province hit by air strikes By Khalid Abdelaziz and Ulf Laessing KHARTOUM/JUBA, April 16 (Reuters) - Sudan's parliament branded South Sudan an "enemy" on Monday and called for a swift recapture of a disputed oil-producing region, as rising border tensions pushed the old civil war foes closer to another full-blown conflict. South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan last July, seized the contested Heglig oilfield last Tuesday, prompting its northern neighbour to vow to recapture the area by "all means". The oilfield is vital to Sudan's economy, producing about half of the 115,000 barrel-per-day output that remained in its control after South Sudan's secession. Addressing the Khartoum parliament, speaker Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir accused the South's ruling party - the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) - of posing a security threat to the north. "We declare that we will confront the SPLM until we end its rule of the South, and will work to gather our resources to realise this aim," he said. "We are in a battle that does not finish with the recovery of Heglig, but with an end to the danger that comes from South Sudan." The assembly went on to adopt a resolution describing the SPLM government as "an enemy", but it did not spell out the full implications of the decision. South Sudanese Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin called the decision "ludicrous". "How can they call us an enemy?" he said. South Sudan insists Heglig is rightfully part of the South and says it will not withdraw its troops unless the United Nations deploys a neutral force to monitor a ceasefire. It accused Khartoum on Sunday of reducing the oil facility "to rubble" in an air strike, an accusation denied by Sudan. "If any damage has occurred in Heglig it may have been on the part of the army of South Sudan," Sudanese Information Minister Abdallah Ali Masar said. Both sides regularly make conflicting claims. Limited access to the remote region makes it difficult to independently verify their statements. FIGHTING ECLIPSES NEGOTIATIONS The clashes have all but killed hopes the two can reach an agreement soon on disputed issues such as demarcation of their 1,800-km (1,200-mile) border, division of national debt and the status of citizens in each other's territory. South Sudan's military spokesman, Philip Aguer, said the its armed forces had brought 14 prisoners of war to Juba on Sunday, the first to arrive in the South's capital since the fighting in Heglig began. He said Sudan's army had also shelled a location in the west of South Sudan's Upper Nile state on Sunday. "The army is trying to open other fronts," he said. Barnaba said at least four people were killed and 21 wounded by air strikes on Sunday on Bentiu and Mayom in South Sudan's Unity state, figures that could not be independently confirmed. During an aerial bombardment of the area, a U.N. camp in Mayom was hit and its radio room was damaged, but no one was wounded, said Kouider Zerrouk, a United Nations spokesman. Sudan's armed forces spokesman said Sudan had "no relation" to what was happening in Unity state. "The Sudanese armed forces are defending their territory after coming under attack from the forces of South Sudan's government and does not bear any responsibility for what happens outside Sudan's borders," spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khalid said, according to state news agency SUNA. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice described the bombing which hit the U.N. camp as "particularly condemnable and deplorable". "This is obviously a subject of grave concern as is the South's continued presence in Heglig and a myriad of violent confrontations in and around the border area and deep into both countries territory," she told reporters on Monday. In Juba, South Sudan's parliament decided to raise military spending and bolster the army by cutting salaries of all deputies by 10 percent for three months. "It is better to give the money to the army to defend our country," senior parliamentarian Joy Kwaje told reporters after deputies approved a resolution to support the armed forces and a general mobilisation of the military. (Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols and Alexander Dziadosz Editing by Maria Golovnina) http://af.reuters.com/article/sudanNews/idAFL6E8FGDL320120416?sp=true END3 4. MPs in Khartoum brand South Sudan 'enemy' state BBC 16 April 2012 Last updated at 17:00 S Sudanese MPs have voted unanimously to brand South Sudan "an enemy". "The government of South Sudan is an enemy and all Sudanese state agencies have to treat her accordingly," the resolution said. A Khartoum information ministry official told the BBC the move was linked to South Sudan's seizure last week of the Heglig oil field. South Sudan had accused Sudan of launching attacks on its territory from the frontier oil field. The country seceded from Sudan in July last year following a civil war which ended in 2005. But a number of major disputes remain, including over oil and the official demarcation of the international border, and there have been a number of clashes since. UN camp bombed The BBC's James Copnall in Khartoum says the full ramifications of the parliamentary vote are not clear, but it is evident that both countries are close to a full war. The speaker of parliament, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, called for Sudan to overthrow the South Sudanese government, the AFP news agency reports. Dr Khalid Al Mubarak, London's Sudan embassy spokesperson, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that South Sudan has made itself an enemy by crossing the border and occupying Sudan's land. "It is not the people of the south but the government that is the real enemy and we know how to confront them," Rabbie Abd al-Attie, a senior adviser to Sudan's information minister, told the BBC. Khartoum has vowed to use "all means" to recapture Heglig - but Sudanese officials deny Monday's vote amounts to a declaration of war, adding that Sudan does not want an all-out war but simply needs to regain its territories. Heglig, which used to provide more than half of Sudan's oil, is internationally accepted to be part of Sudanese territory - although the border area is yet to be demarcated. The parliamentary vote in Khartoum came as a UN spokesman confirmed that Sudanese planes had bombed a UN peacekeepers' camp in South Sudan's border area on Sunday. No-one was hurt during the attack on the small UN base in Mayom village in Unity state, Kouider Zerrouk said. But at least 15 people have been killed in other bombing raids in South Sudan over the weekend, eyewitnesses told the BBC. The African Union has demanded South Sudan's unconditional withdrawal from Heglig, calling its occupation "illegal and unacceptable", but also condemned Sudan for carrying out aerial bombardments of South Sudan. Sudan has denied being behind the air raids. On Thursday, the UN Security Council called for an "immediate" ceasefire and expressed "deep and growing alarm at the escalating conflict". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17727624 END4 5. Who owns Heglig oil field? BBC 16 April 2012 Last updated at 17:00 Until 8th April, Heglig was firmly under Khartoum's control and the oil field provided more than half of Sudan's oil A 2009 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling had removed it from the disputed Abyei region and placed it in South Kordofan in Sudan - according to the north-south border set in 1956 at independence However, analysts say the court's decision cannot be interpreted as the right for Sudan to own Heglig as the official demarcation of the international border is yet to be agreed following South Sudan's secession last July Several international bodies have condemned South Sudan for taking control of Heglig - the African Union's Peace and Security Council called it an "illegal occupation", suggesting it is accepted fairly widely internationally that Heglig is part of Sudan http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17727624 END5 6. FACTBOX - Sudan's Heglig oilfield Mon Apr 16, 2012 11:52am GMT April 16 (Reuters) - South Sudan seized control of the disputed Heglig oilfield on the border with Sudan last week, edging the two countries closer to a resumption of all-out war. Both sides traded claims and counterclaims the field was bombed and damaged during fighting on Sunday. Here is the background to the dispute and a look at the oilfield, which produced about half of Sudan's 115,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) output: THE DISPUTE * Fighting has been fuelled by a festering row between the two countries over issues including the exact position of their shared border, control of disputed areas, the status of citizens in one another's territories and oil payments. * Sudan lost three quarters of its oil output when South Sudan seceded in July 2011. The former civil war foes have since wrangled over how much the landlocked new nation should pay to export crude via the north to a Red Sea terminal at Port Sudan. * In January 2012, South Sudan shut down its entire output of 350,000 bpd to stop Khartoum from taking oil to make up for what it calls unpaid fees for transit and use of its facilities. HEGLIG OIL FIELD: * Heglig contains a large oilfield which Khartoum controlled until South Sudan's army seized it last week. The field was central to the north's economy, which was already reeling from the loss of oil revenues after the South split off. * The field is operated by Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co. (GNPOC), a consortium of Chinese, Malaysian, Indian and Sudanese companies. GNPOC said last month it would go ahead with plans to increase output to 70,000 bpd from 60,000 bpd. * Production at Heglig - known as the Greater Nile Oil Project - began in 1996 with the development of the Heglig and Unity fields, which are now the largest in the area. * A 450,000 bpd pipeline stretches 1,000 miles from the Muglad Basin to an export terminal near Port Sudan, transporting oil from the Heglig, Unity and surrounding smaller fields. * The oilfields within the blocks straddle both countries. While the Unity field is fully located in the South, parts of the border area around the Heglig field in Block 2 are still in dispute. * To back its claim to the field, Khartoum has cited a 2009 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that said Heglig was not part of the disputed Abyei territory. Maps issued by the court appear to put Heglig in the north. * Juba hotly contested Khartoum's claim, often citing an internal boundary marked by British colonial administrators and the ethnicity of the local population. Many southerners call the area Panthou. (Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Mark Heinrich) http://af.reuters.com/article/sudanNews/idAFL6E8FG4YI20120416?sp=true END6 7. Clarification on status of Heglig from Global Witness, 16th April 2012 Global Witness of course understands that the status of Heglig is still in dispute and [GW] would never presume to make a judgment on the rightful ownership of the territory. In clarifying that Heglig was within the current administrative borders of Sudan [GW] was trying to clarify its current status only and particularly with respect to the oil fields there. Our focus in Sudan and South Sudan has always been exclusive to the oil sector. And in terms of the oil fields' administration, in the implementation of the CPA's wealth sharing deal, Heglig was designated as within Block 2 and as such, characterized in the Joint Technical Committee reports (the documentation which was the basis for the 50:50 revenue split) as 'Northern Wells.' Since South Sudan's independence, the administration of Heglig's oil fields has continued to be controlled in Khartoum. Consequently, [GW's] comments in The National were intended to point out that at the time the SPLA announced it had taken Heglig, the fields and facilities there were within the "current administrative borders" of Sudan. [GW] never meant for this to portray a judgment on the different historical and legal claims behind the ongoing dispute... END7 8. SPLA shoots down Khartoum jet fighter over Heglig: officials April 17, 2012 (JUBA) – A Sudanese MiG 29 jet fighter was shot down over the disputed oil region of Heglig on Monday evening by the South Sudanese army (SPLA) who have held the area for almost a week, according to officials. Sources from both the South Sudanese military and Unity State officials told Sudan Tribune late on Monday that SPLA forces were moving to where the plane fell. A Sudan Tribune reporter based in Bentiu, the Unity State capital, said journalists were planning to get to the site to verify the incident. The SPLA says it maintains full control of Heglig and has pushed the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) 40km away from the area. However, Khartoum has claims it has regained part of the oil-producing area, which is vital to Sudan’s struggling economy. Since occupying the area last week the SPLA has stopped Heglig’s oil pumps denying Khartoum half of its oil production. The southern military says that Khartoum’s fighter planes have been carrying out bombardments in the Heglig area and beyond in Unity State, which borders Sudan. Khartoum has repeatedly denied bombing South Sudanese territory, although a UN report covering the period of 6-13 April said: "Bombardments by Sudanese forces continued throughout the week, targeting locations in Unity State – including Abiemnom, Pariang and Bentiu town – and Warrap State’s Twic County. Four civilians and a soldier were reportedly killed in a 14 April air raid on Bentiu town". The Sudanese government has said that any damage to the facilities at Heglig must have been caused by the SPLA and not by their own forces. Pagan Amum, South Sudan’s chief negotiator at the talks between the two nations that had been taking place in Addis Ababa until the latest fighting erupted, claimed on 4 April that the SPLA had shot down a Sudanese fighter jet sent to bomb the oil-rich Pan Akuac region in Unity State. At the time Sudanese military spokesman Al Sawarmi Khaled Sa’ad denied the allegation. (ST) http://www.sudantribune.com/BREAKING-NEWS-SPLA-shoots-down,42284 END8 ______________________ John Ashworth Sudan, South Sudan Advisor [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile) +27 82 050 1235 (South Africa mobile) +44 750 304 1790 (UK/international) +88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone) PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation -- The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group. 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