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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Jul 07 2011 - 08:45:34 EDT
By Maram Mazen and William Davison - Jul 7, 2011 6:39 AM ET
Sudan Quits Peace Talks on Southern Kordofan, Bashir Says
Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir quit talks in Ethiopia to end clashes in
the northern oil- producing state of Southern Kordofan, two days before
South Sudan becomes independent.
”There will be no more negotiations outside Sudan,” Al- Bashir told a rally
today in White Nile state in a speech televised live on the state Sudan TV
station.
Clashes between Sudanese government forces and troops loyal to Southern
Sudan’s army in Southern Kordofan have forced more than 73,000 people to
flee their homes since June 5, according to the United Nations. The fighting
there and in the disputed border region of Abyei raised concern about the
possible resumption of a two-decade civil war that ended in 2005.
Southern Kordofan remains “tense” and “volatile,” the UN said today. Heavy
gunfire and aerial bombardments took place around the state capital,
Kadugli, each day from June 30 to July 5, the UN Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs said in an e-mailed report. It also said helicopter
gunships “engaged in offensive air operations” west of Kadugli on July 4.
Former South African president Thabo Mbeki traveled to Sudan yesterday from
Ethiopia, where he was mediating negotiations on Southern Kordofan,
state-run SUNA news agency reported. Mbeki held talks with al-Bashir, SUNA
said, without giving details.
Mbeki Failed
Mbeki, the head of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel on
Sudan, said negotiators had reached a “framework agreement” on June 28 to
end the violence in Southern Kordofan.
“Unfortunately, President Mbeki failed in his mission with President
Bashir,” Yasser Arman, the secretary-general of the northern branch of
Southern Sudan’s ruling party, told reporters today in Addis Ababa.
“President Bashir wants to continue a new war in the north and it’s known
there are a lot of atrocities, especially in Southern Kordofan and there is
an ethnic cleansing.”
Southern Kordofan borders the oil-rich states of Unity and Upper Nile in
Southern Sudan, which will assume control of about 75 percent of Sudan’s
daily oil production of 490,000 barrels when it becomes independent. The
crude is pumped mainly by China National Petroleum
Corp.<http://www.cnpc.com.cn/en/>,
Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp.
The state accounts for about 115,000 barrels per day, according to Sudan’s
minister of state for oil, Ali Ahmed Osman.
Civil War Legacy
The Sudanese government had said northern fighters from Southern Kordofan
state, who were allied with the south in the civil war, must be integrated
into the army.
The Sudanese army will continue its military operations against what it
describes as ”rebels” in Southern Kordofan, as ”no cease-fire agreement has
been signed yet,” Sudanese army spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khaled said by phone
yesterday.
The U.S. is “concerned that President Bashir has raised objections to the
political and security framework agreement,” the State Department said in an
e-mailed statement yesterday. It urged the government to work with the
African Union panel “to overcome any objections so the vitally important
discussions called for in that agreement can proceed.”
To contact the reporters on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa via
Nairobi at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net; Maram Mazen in Khartoum via the Cairo
newsroom at mmazen@bloomberg.net.
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