Sudan Prepared for War, Recent Clashes ‘Lessons’, Bashir Says
Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir said today he is prepared for war, less than a month before Southern Sudan’s independence, and that recent border clashes with units from the south’s army were “lessons”.
Clashes along the north-south border have raised concern about a resumption of the two-decade civil war in sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest oil producer that ended with a 2005 peace agreement. The south is due to become independent on July 9.
Fighting and air strikes by Sudan’s military in the past two weeks in Southern Kordofan, northern Sudan’s only oil- producing state, led to the flight of 60,000 people, while another 113,000 people fled their homes after the Sudanese army occupied Abyei on May 21, accusing southern forces of attacking them, according to United Nations estimates.
“We told our brothers in the south, do you want peace? Everything we’ve done is for peace,” al-Bashir said in a speech in Red Sea state, broadcast on the state-run Sudan TV. “But if you want war, you can see what’s going on in Abyei and in Southern Kordofan, and these are all lessons.”
The Sudanese army has accused fighters from the south’s ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, of starting the violence in both regions.
“Unfortunately, some of our brothers in the SPLM understand things very late,” al-Bashir said. “If we’re dragged to war, your sons in the Armed Forces will not let you down.”
Delegations from the north and south are discussing the proposed mandate of an Ethiopian force that would replace UN peacekeepers in the region after Southern Sudan’s independence. Talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, over Abyei also include the structure of the region’s future administration.
The talks also address a cease-fire in Southern Kordofan, according to Thabo Mbeki, head of the African Union’s High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan.
The clashes in Southern Kordofan may have broken out when northern forces tried to disarm members of the Nuba ethnic group who fought on the side of Southern Sudan in the civil war, according to the south’s army spokesman, Philip Aguer. The fighting doesn’t involve the Southern Sudanese army based in the regional capital, Juba, he said on June 5.
To contact the reporter on this story: Maram Mazen in Khartoum at mmazen@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
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