# South Sudan



## High_Gravity

Incentivization of violence rebellions is the threat to Peace and stability in South Sudan, not Hon. Pagan Amum 









> PaanLuel Wël, Washington DC, USA
> 
> As you make your bed, so must you lie on itEnglish Adage.
> 
> March 27, 2011 (SSNA) -- I rarely comment on nor engage in futile debate on trivial issues raised on this news-site though many topics that justifiably demand and does deserve such course of actions from my standpoint of view do abound. Sometimes, however, circumstantial events such as the recent articles authored by Deng Reik KhoryoamMarch25th, 2011called for the embracement of pragmatic flexibility in the face of such unwarranted and sensationalized political propaganda.
> 
> In the article, Pagan and the likes area threat to peace and stability in South Sudan!, Mr. Khoryoam attempted to paint an eerily dark and reckless picture of Hon. Pagan Amum, the SPLM SG and the Minister for Peace and CPA Implementation in the government of Southern Sudan, as the sole cause of all problems bedeviling the soon-to-be independent state of South Sudan.
> 
> Without delving into each and every baseless accusation he congregated against Hon. Pagan Amum, the doyen of our liberation struggle, it would suffice to state that Mr. Khoryoam is of the erroneous notion that Pagan and the likes are leveling uncalled-for allegations against the NCP; are strikingly lying before cameras about forged animated documents purported to incriminate the NCP; are deliberately diverting public attention away from the SPLM/A own failures to provide public security in South Sudan; and are archaic communists fond of making redundant noises at the wrong time/forum.
> 
> Mr.Khoryoam further submitted that Hon. Pagan Amum is resolutely drawing a wedge between President Kiir of the SPLM and Dr. Lam Akol of the SPLM-DC, much to the destabilization of South Sudan. This audaciously insinuate that the two leadersPresident Kiir and Dr. Lamwould have otherwise been on cordial and collaborative political terms if only there was no this supposedly devil called Pagan and the likes near the corridors of power in Juba.
> 
> Thus, were Mr. Khoryoam to have his ways and will, he would advise President Kiir, and anyone else who care to listen for that matter, to shun Pagan and the likes by all means and costs necessary.
> 
> It is worthwhile to supplementarily state that this is not the first time Mr.Khoryoam is unleashing an unearned attack on one of our war veterans. Following the unfortunate and senseless massacre of innocent civilians of Fangak by the forces of George Athor Deng on February 9th, 2011, Mr. Khoryoam, in one of his penned article in the immediacy of the ill-fated killing, called out Hon. James Hoth Mai, another iconic figure of our liberation struggle, as a coward and a Dinka slave.
> 
> Yet, all good citizens of South Sudan very well know that without the sacrificial perseverance and steadfastness to the core principle of liberation struggle by the devil and the coward as Mr. Khoryoam would rather have us believe in Hon. Pagan Amum and Hon. James Hoth Mai respectively; the SPLM/A, that exclusively spearheaded and fought the war of independence, and hence brought the CPA on a golden plate, would have been defeated between the harrowing years of 1991-2005.



Incentivization of violence rebellions is the threat to Peace and stability in South Sudan, not Hon. Pagan Amum


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## High_Gravity

Egypt negotiates construction plan for Sudanese Nile canal 



> CAIRO: Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf met South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Monday during his two-day visit to to the newly formed country. Sharaf was accompanied by a delegation of Egyptian officials, including Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hussein el-Atfi.
> 
> Talks were hold around future plans to increase water resources of the Nile Basin, as several other Nile countries recently advanced their request to re-shuffle the percentage of Nile water sharing.
> 
> Egyptian and Sudanese delegations agreed upon reviving plans for the construction of the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan. The canal would channel swamp water back into the Nile, amounting to an annual increase of Nile water availability of roughly 4 billion cubic meters.
> 
> El-Atfi declared that Egypt contributed $800 thousand to the rehabilitation of three water level measurement stations in Juba and Malaka, South Sudan. The Egyptian Minister also promised to contribute $1.1 million for the rehabilitation of three more stations by the end of the year.
> 
> Egyptian agriculture, domestic water consumption and energy supplies are tightly knit with the exploitation of Nile waters. Almost 17 percent of Egyptian Gross Domestic Product and 34 percent of total employment is related to the Agricultural works. Moreover, the Aswan Nile Dam produces some 2.1 gigawatts of power.
> 
> Concerns about water supplies in Egypt and Sudan rise as they refuse to take part in talks on the Entebbe Agreement, recently signed by Nile Countries Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. The agreement offers to re-shuffle Nile Water shares, still regulated by two 1929 and 1959 deals that allow Egypt to exploit some 90 percent of Nile waters.



Egypt negotiates construction plan for Sudanese Nile canal - Bikya Masr


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## Ropey

High_Gravity said:


> Egypt negotiates construction plan for Sudanese Nile canal
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CAIRO: Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf met South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Monday during his two-day visit to to the newly formed country. Sharaf was accompanied by a delegation of Egyptian officials, including Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hussein el-Atfi.
> 
> Talks were hold around future plans to increase water resources of the Nile Basin, as several other Nile countries recently advanced their request to re-shuffle the percentage of Nile water sharing.
> 
> Egyptian and Sudanese delegations agreed upon reviving plans for the construction of the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan. The canal would channel swamp water back into the Nile, amounting to an annual increase of Nile water availability of roughly 4 billion cubic meters.
> 
> El-Atfi declared that Egypt contributed $800 thousand to the rehabilitation of three water level measurement stations in Juba and Malaka, South Sudan. The Egyptian Minister also promised to contribute $1.1 million for the rehabilitation of three more stations by the end of the year.
> 
> Egyptian agriculture, domestic water consumption and energy supplies are tightly knit with the exploitation of Nile waters. Almost 17 percent of Egyptian Gross Domestic Product and 34 percent of total employment is related to the Agricultural works. Moreover, the Aswan Nile Dam produces some 2.1 gigawatts of power.
> 
> Concerns about water supplies in Egypt and Sudan rise as they refuse to take part in talks on the Entebbe Agreement, recently signed by Nile Countries Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. The agreement offers to re-shuffle Nile Water shares, still regulated by two 1929 and 1959 deals that allow Egypt to exploit some 90 percent of Nile waters.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Egypt negotiates construction plan for Sudanese Nile canal - Bikya Masr
Click to expand...


Somaliland next.


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## High_Gravity

South Sudan training Darfur rebels - Bashir adviser








> An adviser to Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has accused southern leaders of training rebels from Darfur in order to destabilise the north.
> 
> Mustafa Ismail Osman was responding to accusations from the south that the north was stirring up trouble ahead of southern independence in July.
> 
> He warned the south that its support for Darfur would not be tolerated.
> 
> Tensions are again rising between north and south, after years of war which left some 1.5 million people dead.
> 
> The SPLM party, which fought Khartoum for decades until a 2005 ceasefire and now runs the south, has recently accused the north of backing rebel groups in the south and suspended talks about secession.
> 
> It has dismissed Mr Osman's allegations.
> 
> The western region of Darfur, which will remain part of the north, has faced its own rebellion since 2003.



BBC News - South Sudan training Darfur rebels - Bashir adviser


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## High_Gravity

South Sudan Prints New Currency Ahead of Independence








> The government of South Sudan is already printing a new currency ahead of the region&#8217;s official declaration of independence in July.
> 
> South Sudan&#8217;s finance and economic planning minister, David Deng Athorbei told reporters in Juba that the new currency is being printed in Europe, by a company he wouldn&#8217;t name, and will be held by the printer until July 9th, the day the south&#8217;s independence is expected to be declared.
> 
> &#8220;We are printing a new currency but we are still maintaining some secrecy because we are not yet an independent state,&#8221; Athorbei said during the government&#8217;s weekly press briefing on Tuesday.
> 
> During post-referendum talks in Addis Ababa early this month, delegates from the north&#8217;s ruling party, the NCP and the south&#8217;s ruling party, the SPLM, agreed that South Sudan will have a its own new currency after independence.
> 
> Athorbei said his ministry had signed a contract with a European company that will print the currency adding, &#8220;They will release the currency to us on one condition that by the time we are recognized as an independent state by either the United States or Great Britain, then they will release the currency.&#8221;
> 
> He said the government of South Sudan wanted to have the new currency ready for circulation, just in case the government in the north decides to issue a new currency for the north on the day the south officially secedes.
> 
> &#8220;We could have waited until our independence and come out openly but that will delay our currency because we do not know, maybe on the 9th the north may issue a new currency,&#8221; Athorbei explained.
> 
> The issuance of a new currency by the north would tremendously disrupt the south&#8217;s economy, which is intertwined with that of the north.
> 
> The finance minister described the features of the currency being printed, which he said will be called the South Sudanese pound.



South Sudan Prints New Currency Ahead of Independence | East Africa | English


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## High_Gravity

Sudan's North, South Discuss Possible Cross-Border Stakes 








> LONDON (Dow Jones)--Sudan's North and South are discussing the possibility of sharing the ownership of oil and gas blocks on both sides of their borders when the country splits this summer, the head of the north's state-oil company Sudapet said Tuesday.
> 
> Speaking to reporters on the side of a London natural gas conference, Salah Wabhi, chief executive of Sudapet, said "it is discussed" about the possibility of the northern and southern oil companies sharing stakes in their respective countries.
> 
> "They are going to work with us in the North and we are going with them in the South," he said.
> 
> In January, an overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted to break away from the North, a split that should be effective July 9.
> 
> Wabhi said the committee tasked to discuss the separation on oil matters was set to meet next week.
> 
> "We have a good outline but the plans have not been finalized yet," the CEO said.
> 
> He said Sudapet has been training staff at its Southern counterpart, Nilepet, for a year.
> 
> "A stable South is better for a stable North," Wabhi said.
> 
> -By Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 77 601 777 36; benoit.faucon@dowjones.com



Sudan's North, South Discuss Possible Cross-Border Stakes -Sudapet - WSJ.com


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## High_Gravity

U.S. says future South Sudan state exempt from economic sanctions 








> April 12, 2011 (WASHINGTON)  The new state of South Sudan that will officially see the light in less than three months is exempt from the decade-long sanctions imposed on the entire country, the United States said today.
> 
> The outcome was a near unanimous vote in favor of independence that is scheduled to take place at the end of the interim period on July 9.
> 
> On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a press release explaining the sanctions policy with regard to the new state.
> 
> "When the new state is formed by Southern Sudan, it will not be included in the territorial boundaries of Sudan nor be governed by the Government of Sudan," OFAC said in its statement.
> 
> "Following interagency consultations, OFAC has concluded that the SSR will continue to apply only to Sudan and the Government of Sudan, and that such a new state and its government will not be subject to them".
> 
> Washington imposed economic and trade sanctions on Sudan in 1997 because of the North-South civil war and allegations that it is supporting terrorism. In 2006 and 2007 the embargo was strengthened over a separate conflict in Darfur.
> 
> OFAC said that this exemption is consistent with executive orders issued by the White House in the past which cited the need for sanctions " to deal with the threat that the policies and actions of the Government of Sudan pose to the national security and foreign policy of the United States".
> 
> However, certain aspects of the sanctions may still apply if it involves properties or interests related to the government of Sudan.
> 
> "For example, the [Sudan Sanctions Regulations] SSR will prohibit a U.S. company, unless authorized by OFAC, from providing services to the petroleum industry in the new state if those services would benefit the Government of Sudan or relate to the petroleum industry in Sudan, or from transporting exports of petroleum or petrochemical products through Sudan.".
> 
> "Further, should a revenue-sharing arrangement between Sudan and the new state result in a situation where the government of the new state makes payments to the Government of Sudan from the sale of Southern Sudanese petroleum, U.S. persons generally could not engage in transactions involving the oil industry in the new state unless authorized by OFAC".
> 
> The new directive will likely infuriate Khartoum which has sought relentlessly to have the U.S. lift the sanctions since signing the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
> 
> Washington has insisted that what it labeled as genocide in Darfur prevented it from revoking the embargo.
> 
> However, the U.S. administration said that it has initiated the process that may result in removing Sudans name from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism as a reward for facilitating the Souths referendum and later recognizing its results.



U.S. says future South Sudan state exempt from economic sanctions - Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan


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## High_Gravity

Over 150 Dead as South Sudan Army, Rebels Clash








> Officials in south Sudan say more than 150 people have been killed in clashes between the region's army and two separate rebel militias.
> 
> Army officials say one militia, led by Gabriel Tanginya, surrendered late Sunday after a fierce gunbattle a day earlier. Army spokesman Malaak Ayuen said 57 rebels and seven solders died in the battle.
> 
> Officials say Tanginya's militia was being integrated into the army when an argument broke out, sparking the clash in Jonglei state.
> 
> Ayuen said more than 100 people died in separate fighting between soldiers and a rebel group led by former general Peter Gadet.
> 
> Ayuen said that fighting took place over several days last week as Gadet's men tried to seize towns in Mayom county, in Unity state. Both sides claimed the upper hand in the fighting. Gadet's militia said it killed hundreds of army soldiers.
> 
> Hundreds have died in fighting across southern Sudan since January, when the region voted to split from the north. Southern leaders have accused the north of backing the rebellions to destabilize the region ahead of independence in July.
> 
> Northern and southern Sudan fought a 21-year civil war that ended with a 2005 peace agreement.
> 
> The sides are still trying to resolve issues over borders and the fate of the oil-producing Abyei region, which sits on the north-south border.



Over 150 Dead as South Sudan Army, Rebels Clash | News | English


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## High_Gravity

World Bank: South Sudan improves business climate








> WASHINGTON - Southern Sudan, poised to become Africa's newest nation in July, is making progress in creating a business-friendly environment, the World Bank said Tuesday.
> 
> "The Government of Southern Sudan is making strides to improve the business environment for small and medium enterprises," the Washington-based institution said in a report on business regulations in Juba, which will be the new nation's capital.
> 
> The semi-autonomous region overwhelmingly voted to secede from Sudan in a January referendum after five decades of conflict between the mainly Christian, African south and the predominantly Arab, Muslim north.
> 
> The World Bank report, "Doing Business in Juba 2011," cites improvements in eight laws on business registration, operations, and land ownership that have been enacted since the 2005 peace agreement.
> 
> Starting a business, for example, takes a relatively swift 15 days in Juba, compared with an average 13.8 days in developed economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the bank noted.
> 
> But the cost of starting a business is sky-high -- as much as 250 percent of per-capita income and more than twice the average cost in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report financed by the US Agency for International Development.
> 
> Although commercial banks have been established and basic infrastructure is being rehabilitated, the fledgling country must make further progress to achieve a healthy business climate, the World Bank said.
> 
> "Reforms that cut red tape, clarify property rights, and streamline regulatory compliance can yield big payoffs," Mierta Capaul, a top private-sector development specialist of the World Bank, said in a statement.
> 
> The study, conducted in partnership with the government's ministry of investment, highlighted key areas for improvement, including access to credit which at present is very limited.
> 
> "There is an opportunity for Southern Sudan to build the strong foundation necessary for a vibrant formal private sector," Capaul said.
> 
> The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank's sister institution, said in late April it had received a membership application from South Sudan.
> 
> In view of the application, the IMF said it would seek donor contributions for a special $10.6 million trust fund to provide intense technical assistance to the authorities in building the new countrys macroeconomic institutions.



.:Middle East Online:.World Bank: South Sudan improves business climate


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## High_Gravity

South Sudan: Peaceful independence on July 9?








> South Sudan stands a good chance of becoming an independent nation peacefully, despite ongoing skirmishes and a build up of military forces on the disputed border between North and South Sudan.
> 
> That's the word from U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman who says that he is reasonably optimistic that Sudanese parties can amicably resolve their remaining issues before South Sudan becomes independent on July 9, according to VOA.
> 
> Lyman's optimism is guarded because the North and South have continued to exchange antagonistic statements and there is a build up of military forces along the disputed border between the two.
> 
> Talks on the separation of the country between the ruling parties of the North and South resumed this week in Addis Ababa.
> 
> The major issue is whether or not the oil-rich central Abyei region will be in the South or the North. The two sides must also sort out differences over oil-sharing, currency policy and dividing Sudans external debt.
> 
> Lyman, who visited Khartoum and Juba earlier this month, expressed relief that the parties were able to step back from a potential confrontation after a military clash in Abyei May 1. He urged them to withdraw excess forces from the disputed region under a deal mediated by the African Union and United Nations.
> 
> Lyman was joined at a State Department briefing by U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah, who visited Sudan to see how the two states can be economically viable. He said the United States will The United States and Norway will host an investor's conference for Southern Sudan and Northern Sudan respectively. The conference will be in Washington, DC, in September.
> 
> Shah said would-be investors in the south are encouraged. He said the North, facing a loss of oil income, will have to diversify its economy.
> 
> They need to reinvest in agriculture, which continues to be the area of employment for 80 percent of the population. And they need to do that in ways that recognize that trade with the south, whether in the agriculture sector or other sectors, is going to be a critical part of an economic strategy, just as for the south, trade with the north will continue to be quite important for their economic viability, said Shah.
> 
> Lyman also visited Sudans troubled western Darfur region and said the U.S. is very disturbed by recent fighting between government forces and Darfur rebels, including government airstrikes.
> 
> In response to questions, Lyman said progress on a U.S.-proposed road map to full normalization of U.S. relations with President Omar al-Bashir's government in Khartoum is not frozen because of the Darfur violence but he said events there are terribly relevant.



Sudan | South Sudan | Independence | Khartoum | Juba


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## High_Gravity

Southern Sudan Appeals For International Help After Northern Sudanese Forces Seize Abyei 








> JUBA, Sudan  Southern Sudanese officials appealed for international help Sunday after northern Sudanese troops seized a disputed border town, and the U.N. Security Council and secretary-general demanded an immediate end to military action and withdrawal.
> 
> But they stopped short of promising specific action to dislodge northern soldiers from a flash point that threatens to re-ignite the country's civil war.
> 
> Northern tanks rolled into the town of Abyei Saturday night, scattering southern troops that were there as part of a joint security unit. The U.N. compound was also hit with mortar fire, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said two U.N. peacekeepers were wounded.
> 
> The seizure of Abyei followed an attack on a convoy of northern soldiers by southern forces on Thursday and two days of aerial bombardment of the area by the north.
> 
> Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that its hospital in Agok, 40 kilometers (24 miles) south of Abyei, received 42 wounded people late Friday and early Saturday. It said that by Sunday morning nearly the entire population of Abyei had fled and the town was almost empty.
> 
> The escalation in violence comes less than two months before South Sudan, which is predominantly ethnic African, is due to become the world's newest country on July 9 after voting overwhelmingly to secede from the Arab-dominated north. The north and south fought a civil war for more than two decades before a 2005 peace deal offered the south the chance for independence.
> 
> Under the peace deal, Abyei was also due to have a referendum to decide whether it would remain part of the north or south, but it was canceled amid disagreements over who was eligible to vote.
> 
> "The present occupation (by the northern government) is illegal, this is the responsibility of the (U.N.) Security Council to see that they are withdrawn," said Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the south's information minister.
> 
> The northern army accused the south of violating the peace agreement and said the northern occupation of the area, including Abyei town, would continue until an accord could be reached that would guarantee security and stability in the region.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/sudan-abyei-seized-civil-war_n_865264.html


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## High_Gravity

South Sudan threatens to retaliate against North in border dispute








> The growing possibility of civil war over Sudan's most disputed border zone was confirmed Monday when the South Sudanese army said it would retaliate if the North's army continued to move south.
> 
> Sudan's seizure of key border town reignites concerns of civil war Taking care of business in South Sudan Election in Sudan's Southern Kordofan marred by disputed results "Our mission is to protect the borders  any step south of this [North-South] border will not be tolerated," says South Sudan's military spokesman Philip Aguer.
> 
> On Saturday, northern forces seized the strategic, contested border town of Abyei and Mr. Aguer is warning the North that it is at risk of shattering the fragile 2005 peace deal that ended two decades of war.
> 
> Now, in a bid to deescalate tensions, US envoy Princeton Lyman is warning that the North has risked debt relief worth billions of dollars by seizing Abyei.
> 
> Mr. Lyman told the Monitor in a Sunday phone interview that it was crucial for the North's President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan President Salva Kiir to meet to discuss the crisis.
> 
> With a UN Security Council delegation currently in the country, South Sudanese officials have appealed to the international community to force the withdrawal of the North's army from Abyei.&#8232;
> 
> The Security Council called for the North's withdrawal at a press conference in Khartoum yesterday, but the North has struck a defensive tone and top officials refused to meet with the delegation. Mr. Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes for his role in the unresolved Darfur conflict, was not invited to meet with the delegation.
> 
> *Roots of the dispute over Abyei*
> 
> A series of internationally-brokered agreements since 2005 have failed to contain the continually volatile situation in Abyei, which first exploded in 2008 when the North's army razed the town. &#8232;The referendum the people of Abyei were promised in the 2005 peace deal was not held as scheduled in January due to a dispute between the North and South regarding who could vote.
> 
> The North's government said that the semi-nomadic, Arab Misseriya people must be allowed to vote, while the soon-to-be independent South Sudanese government rejected that the Misseriya counted as residents.
> 
> Abyei is a fertile patch of borderland shared by two populations with different loyalties. The Ngok Dinka people claim the land as their historical homeland, support the Souths government, and hope that Abyei will join the South when the new nation  the Republic of South Sudan  is officially formed on July 9.



South Sudan threatens to retaliate against North in border dispute - CSMonitor.com


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## Ropey

It's not over by a long shot.


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## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> It's not over by a long shot.



Your right its not, I knew it was too good to be true that the Arabs would let them keep all this oil.


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## High_Gravity

North May Cleanse Sudanese Border Town, U.N. Says








> NAIROBI, Kenya  After seizing a disputed town on the border of the breakaway region of southern Sudan on Saturday, the army of northern Sudan is now facilitating a relatively large influx of nomadic people into the area, according to new United Nations field reports.
> 
> United Nations officials said the move could mean that the Sudanese government is trying to ethnically cleanse the area, in a bid to permanently change its demographics and annex the town, Abyei, just weeks before southern Sudan is supposed to split off from the north and form its own country.
> 
> As the July target for the souths independence draws near, the battles over Abyei have grown more intense, and the moves by the north have threatened to plunge the two sides into a conflict that diplomats fear could scuttle the carefully choreographed treaty arranging for the south to become the worlds newest state.
> 
> One United Nations official said a northern Sudanese general revealed this week that there was a plan to bring 15,000 Misseriya, an Arab and nomadic people, into Abyei in the coming days, which could have a serious impact on Abyeis delicate demographics. Other United Nations officials estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 Misseriya had already entered Abyei town.
> 
> The Misseriya have a long history of being used by the Sudanese government as proxy forces, and they live in the vast stretches of desert around Abyei, occasionally coming into Abyei to graze their animals. Abyeis permanent residents, however, are the Ngok Dinka.
> 
> Abyei straddles the north-south border and has oil (though a relatively scant amount) and both sides have laid emotional claims to it. A referendum was supposed to be held this year to decide what the people of Abyei wanted, but it was shelved because of disputes over who could vote.
> 
> If the Sudanese government is intent on settling thousands of Misseriya in Abyei, the United Nations official said, then this weekends attack on Abyei was planned as ethnic cleansing strategy.
> 
> Displace the Ngok Dinka residents and bring in Misseriya, then allow the referendum to take place, said the official, who works closely on Sudan issues but was not authorized to speak publicly.
> 
> The strategy is akin to what the Sudanese government, based in Khartoum, did several years ago when it sent notorious janjaweed militias sweeping across the Darfur region, at its behest, to capture land belonging to dispossessed ethnic groups that the government was fighting.
> 
> The north has begun to employ the same kind of scorched-earth tactics we saw Khartoum use in Darfur, said Eliza Griswold, who has closely studied Abyei and is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a public-policy institute in Washington. All of these battles are brutal struggles for power and resources of land, oil, even water  waged by any means necessary.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/world/africa/26sudan.html?ref=africa


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## High_Gravity

South Sudan Leader Tries to Calm Tempers Over Disputed Territory



> NAIROBI, Kenya  Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of the breakaway region of southern Sudan, declared on Thursday that he would not go to war over the disputed Abyei territory, which Sudanese tanks and troops seized Saturday.
> 
> We will not go back to war. It will not happen, Mr. Kiir said at a news conference in southern Sudans capital, Juba.
> 
> Sudan has been increasingly tense over the past few days after northern troops stormed into Abyei and essentially annexed it. The incursion set off looting and pillaging, and United Nations officials have said northern troops might even be helping to ethnically cleanse the area to make it impossible for the original residents to ever return. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced and countless huts burned to the ground.
> 
> Abyei straddles the border between northern and southern Sudan and is claimed by both sides. With less than two months to go before southern Sudan is to split off to form its own country, fears have been growing that the territorys disputed status could derail a peaceful breakup.
> 
> But Mr. Kiir, a former bush fighter known for his patience and reserve, seemed to be trying to ease tensions. Analysts say he has little choice. The north has a better-equipped military, including fighter jets, and it is not clear that southern forces could retake Abyei even if they wanted to. More than that, southern Sudan is so close to achieving a goal that it has fought decades for  independence  that few expect Mr. Kiir to risk that to hold onto Abyei.
> 
> Nevertheless, Mr. Kiir called for Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudans president, to pull his forces out of Abyei. He reiterated that the south will become independent on July 9, whether the north recognizes the south or not.
> 
> The two sides have also agreed to resume negotiations over the remaining separation issues, including Abyei, on Sunday.
> 
> Northern and southern officials have been meeting in Ethiopia over the past few months to hammer out agreements on oil sharing, debt and the disputed border. Analysts said it was a good sign that even after the takeover of Abyei, the two sides were still willing to negotiate with each other.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/africa/27sudan.html


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## High_Gravity

Abyei Violence Could Cause Humanitarian Crisis 








> TURALEI, Sudan  Ayak Adiang and her children will soon run out of food  but only because Adiang opened her home to villagers running from violence.
> 
> Tens of thousands of Sudanese are fleeing from the contested north-south border region of Abyei, and the top U.S. official in the region warned Friday of a humanitarian crisis over the north's invasion.
> 
> Food and fuel are running short. There is not nearly enough shelter.
> 
> Adiang's single-room house is now bursting with people. Martha Abiem Deng arrived empty-handed with two relatives and a dozen children between them after fleeing fighting in Abyei. Adiang took them in.
> 
> "They will consume the little we have," said Adiang as she sat near the dark, pungent hut that serves as her kitchen.
> 
> All Adiang has left is a pot of meat and three bowls of pounded porridge. Turalei's market is empty after an influx frightened families arrived over the past few days, almost doubling the town's population. The only things still for sale are cigarettes and telephone chargers.
> 
> County Commissioner Dominic Deng said Friday that up to 40,000 people have arrived in Turalei, a town just south of Abyei. He said at least 80,000 people have fled Abyei, a zone about the size of Connecticut which northern Sudan invaded last weekend.
> 
> On a visit to Turalei on Friday, the top U.S. official in Southern Sudan, Barrie Walkley, said "we have a perfect storm" creating a humanitarian crisis. Sudan's north is blockading border crossing points, preventing food and fuel from getting to the south. Militias are attacking southern forces, and the northern army displaced tens of thousands of people by invading Abyei, he said.
> 
> Lise Grande, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official in Southern Sudan, said there are not enough stocks in the area to supply all the fleeing families with food and shelter. The fuel shortage is greatly hampering relief efforts, she said.



Abyei Violence Could Cause Humanitarian Crisis


----------



## waltky

Thought the vote for independence was supposed to stop all this?...

*Battle for Abyei could ignite civil war in Sudan*
_May 27, 2011 - As many as 80,000 people have reportedly fled Abyei since northern Sudanese troops seized the symbolic border town last month._


> When northern Sudanese troops seized the disputed border town of Abyei last month, it was a sign that the fragile six-year-old peace between North and South Sudan was teetering on the brink. Some called it the first shots of Sudan's next civil war, following the two-decade-long war that killed an estimated 2 million people.
> 
> Like the more well-known conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region, the North-South civil war began as a result of local disputes, a feeling by many southerners that the Islamist-dominated northern government was neglecting its duties to the South. And between the two sides, Abyei rose as a symbolic prize  a Kashmir or a Jerusalem  that must be fought for and defended at all costs.
> 
> Now, Abyei could pull the divided nation back into war just weeks before South Sudan officially secedes on July 9.  "It's probably the worst-case scenario," said a United Nations humanitarian worker not authorized to speak on the record.  The UN estimates at least 30,000 have fled Abyei and surrounding villages as a result of recent fighting. According to some local officials, that number is closer to 80,000.
> 
> Speaking during a recent trip to Khartoum  the capital of northern Sudan  representatives of the UN Security Council called on the North to withdraw troops from Abyei. But the regime of President Omar al-Bashir  who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur  is digging in its heels. "Abyei belongs to North Sudan," he said emphatically, days after his troops seized Abyei.
> 
> "[Mr. Bashir] is doing this because he's looking at the oil we have and [at] our productive land," says Kuei Deng, who fled Abyei with her daughter, daughter-in-law, and several grandchildren. "That's why he's killing us, to make us leave the land. We believe we are southerners. We are Christians. That's why they are doing this."
> 
> MORE


----------



## High_Gravity

Bashirs not willing to let go of all that oil, plus he doesn't want to see South Sudan become too successful. It makes him look better if South Sudan turns into a shithole.


----------



## High_Gravity

Tensions over Sudan's flashpoint Abyei region








> KHARTOUM/JUBA, Sudan  When northern troops overran Abyei two weeks ago, observers feared Sudan was sliding back to war. This now seems unlikely, but analysts warn that Khartoum will continue to assert itself aggressively ahead of southern independence.
> 
> Despite pressure from the international community to pull back, and strong criticism from Washington, the Sudanese government remains defiant, raising the the likelihood of a grim stalemate when the south secedes on July 9.
> 
> Roger Middleton, Sudan expert at the Chatham House think-tank, says the north's occupation of the bitterly disputed border region had clear objectives, in the context of the north and south negotiating their future relationship.
> 
> "I think there's two things going on. One is taking a strong line with the south, and trying to make sure that... when this new relationship begins, it's Sudan that is the powerful partner," he said.
> 
> "But then there's also a shoring up of positions within the regime in Khartoum," he added, following the "embarrassment" of losing the south, where around 75 percent of the country's oil revenues lie, in January's independence referendum.
> 
> At the time, southerners voted overwhelmingly to split with their former civil war enemies in the north.
> 
> Many are now furious at the northern army's occupation of Abyei, which prompted a mass exodus of the region's pro-southern Dinka Ngok residents, but few would let it jeopardise their hard-fought independence, just weeks away.
> 
> Salva Kiir, the president of the nation in waiting, said just days after northern troops and tanks rolled into Abyei town on May 21 that there would be "no return to war".
> 
> The United Nations says at least 60,000 people from the Abyei region have fled the violence, sparked off by a deadly attack on a northern army convoy two days earlier, while the south claims many more have been displaced.
> 
> "The south will become independent on July 9 whether the north recognises the south or not," Kiir added.
> 
> Observers say his conciliatory tone is pragmatic, since the ex-guerilla southern Sudan People?s Liberation Army (SPLA) is in no position to repel the better equipped northern army.
> 
> Retaliating over Abyei could also encourage the north to abort the 2005 peace agreement at the eleventh hour, a deal that ended the devastating 22-year north-south conflict and is key to guaranteeing the south's independence.
> 
> Both sides strongly claim the poor but fertile region for different reasons.
> 
> The Bahr al-Arab, or Kiir river as it is known to southerners, that runs through Abyei is a crucial destination for Misseriya Arab nomads during their seasonal migration, when they seek pastures and fresh water for their cattle.
> 
> The Misseriya were a key proxy militia of the northern army during the civil war, who are thought to have filled the vaccuum left by the fleeing Dinka Ngok, while the river has become a frontline between northern and southern troops.



AFP: Tensions over Sudan&#39;s flashpoint Abyei region


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan's army contributes to violence, confusion on the ground









> The South Sudanese army has been at the verge of war with the north's Sudan's Sudanese Armed Forces since the north invaded a contested border zone two weeks ago. Though independence looks set to become official in July, the picture on the ground here in the south is increasingly messy.
> 
> More war in Sudan? It's in no one's interest. Northern Sudan tells UN peacekeepers their time is up Satellite photos show Sudanese war crimes, watchdog claims Battle for Abyei could ignite civil war in Sudan The Sudan People&#8217;s Liberation Army (SPLA) is a former guerilla movement that fought a liberation struggle and civil war against the northern Sudanese government for more than two decades before signing an internationally-brokered peace deal in 2005. The deal granted the South the right to decide whether to break away from the north and form a new state.
> 
> The SPLA is not only overwhelmed by the internal and external challenges to stability within its territory, but it is also accused of violating human rights and harassing United Nations agencies and international aid groups attempting to respond to the humanitarian crisis in the fallout of northern Sudan's invasion of the border region of Abyei. The rumors are making aid groups fearful of sending convoys of fuel and food stocks to frontline areas where wounded, hungry, and generally vulnerable populations need the assistance.
> 
> The South's army officials have been frank in my recent discussions with them over the allegations against the Army here in the South.
> 
> &#8220;[Orders] reach the ground. But as anywhere in the world you will not have 100 percent discipline,&#8221; Col. Philip Aguer, the SPLA spokesman, told me today in South Sudan's capital of Juba. He said that the process of both transforming a guerilla army into a conventional one and the intense challenges of integrating rebel militia forces into the army are daunting, especially at a moment when the northern army is aggressively flexing its muscles in Abyei, a territory of great strategic, historical, and emotional importance to southerners.
> 
> Based on United Nations internal reports I obtained while looking into allegations made by local government officials in remote, often inaccessible reaches of the oil-producing Greater Upper Nile region, it is fair to say that the SPLA stands accused of egregious violations of human rights including killing of civilians and destruction of their homes and properties.



South Sudan's army contributes to violence, confusion on the ground - CSMonitor.com


----------



## Tank

High_Gravity said:


> Incentivization of violence rebellions is the threat to Peace and stability in South Sudan


South Sudan or South Central Los Angeles, whats the difference?


----------



## High_Gravity

Tank said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> Incentivization of violence rebellions is the threat to Peace and stability in South Sudan
> 
> 
> 
> South Sudan or South Central Los Angeles, whats the difference?
Click to expand...


Seriously Tank, South Central is way better than South Sudan at this point, I have been to South Central and its not that bad, its not even on the top 10 in crime anymore.


----------



## Tank

There are no white people in South Sudan to help control the violence.

Thats the difference


----------



## High_Gravity

Tank said:


> There are no white people in South Sudan to help control the violence.
> 
> Thats the difference



Flying in some white people would fix South Sudan? well than lets do it!


----------



## Tank

Flying in some bombs would do better


----------



## High_Gravity

Peace deal threatened in Sudan








> JUBA, Sudan, June 8 (UPI) -- Washington expressed deep concern over reports of clashes between military units in the Sudanese state of Kordofan, adding it undermined a 2005 peace deal.
> 
> The south's ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement said at least 17 soldiers were killed in clashes between rival forces in the capital of Kordofan state, the Sudan Tribune reports.
> 
> Mark Toner, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, in a statement said the latest violence in Sudan threatens to undermine a 2005 peace deal that ended a civil war in the country.
> 
> "Such violent acts not only result in the loss of innocent lives but they further throw into jeopardy the peace that both sides had worked so hard to build," he said.
> 
> The 2005 peace deal gave South Sudan the right to vote to form an independent state. The report in the Tribune notes that while Kordofan is part of northern Sudan, it has strong ties to the south.
> 
> An SPLM official told the Sudanese newspaper that his forces didn't start the conflict. He claimed forces from the north launched attacks that started during the weekend.
> 
> The situation in Sudan is tense ahead of South Sudan's formal independence in July.




Read more: Peace deal threatened in Sudan - UPI.com


----------



## LAfrique

I wish the Sudanese government would honor whatever deal was signed in the CPA. A deal is a deal; unless proven unconstitutional.


----------



## High_Gravity

LAfrique said:


> I wish the Sudanese government would honor whatever deal was signed in the CPA. A deal is a deal; unless proven unconstitutional.



Well it looked too good to be true when it was signed, Sudan is not going to let South Sudan keep all of that oil.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan: Is a New Wave of Mass Crimes Underway?








> As the July 9 date for the secession of South Sudan approaches, something very ugly is happening in Sudan. Northern Sudan has initiated a series of violent affronts on contested regions: the border region of Abyei last month, and now, South Kordofan, a northern state whose inhabitants mainly identify with the South. While the assault on Abyei has resulted in an already acknowledged humanitarian crisis, the consequences of the attack on Kordofan are likely to be even more severe.
> 
> An early UN assessment of the aftermath of the brutal seizure of Abyei found that the actions by Khartoums military and militia forcesincluding killings and ethnically targeted destruction of propertywere tantamount to ethnic cleansing. More than 100,000 Dinka Ngokthe northernmost of the Dinka tribal groups, the largest in the Southfled for  their lives to the south of Abyei. A mass of satellite and ground photography depicting ethnic cleansing and the extraordinary statements by former U.S. State Department Ambassadors-at-Large for War Crimes of the crimes against humanity further testified to the gravity of the assault.
> 
> Conditions are poor for those who fled Abyei, and for many there is no assistance at all. Khartoum has thrown up an economic blockade on goods moving from North to South Sudan, including fuel, leaving many relief organizations without mobility. Many of the displaced are severely suffering. The New York Times reported on one woman, slumped in the meager shade of a thorn tree, her belly rumbling from the nearly toxic mix of wild plants, who had lost two of her children in the chaotic exodus out of Abyei.
> 
> Now, even greater violence is rapidly unfolding in South Kordofan, which abuts Abyei and lies immediately north of an oil-rich region in the South. For the past week, there have been many reports of ethnically-targeted executions (including women and children), destruction of churches, the killing of church officials, and bombings of civilian targets in the Nuba Mountains. Geographically situated within South Kordofan State, butnowhere contiguous with the are that will become South Sudan, the Nuba area is populated by an ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse people who sided with the South during the civil war and feel deeply uncomfortable with the threat of Khartoums Islamism and Arabism. Because the center of military resistance is within the Nuba, and because Khartoum wishes to eliminate the region as a source of future threats,much of this assault on Kordofan will take place in the Nuba Mountains.
> 
> We have no way of knowing exactly how many have fled in South Kordofan but the estimates are growing with terrifying speed; the UN estimate for the capital of South Kordofan State, Kadugli, is around 40,000. Human Rights Watch reports tens of thousands of people fleeing toward El Obeid, the capital of the North Kordofan State. The World Council of Churches, an organization with close ties to the people of the Nuba, reports that as many as 300,000 civilians are besieged and cut off from humanitarian assistance. The highly reliable Sudan Ecumenical Council has declared that [other civilians] have fled to the Nuba Mountains, where they are being hunted down like animals by helicopter gunships. With critical shortages of water and food already reportedit is also now the hunger gap, the period between fall and winter harvests and the next round of harvests beginning in Octoberconditions for those who have fled and are cut-off from any assistance will only grow more deadly.
> 
> Ominously, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has given a free hand to military forces in South Kordofan, apparently giving license for the persecution of anyone accused of sympathizing with the southern Sudanese movement and party, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM), which is overwhelmingly made up of African tribal groups. Human Rights Watch reports receiving credible reports that various northern militia carried out house-to-house searches and set up checkpoints, killing civilians in the process.



Is A New Wave Of Mass Crimes Underway In Sudan? | The New Republic


----------



## LAfrique

High_Gravity said:


> LAfrique said:
> 
> 
> 
> I wish the Sudanese government would honor whatever deal was signed in the CPA. A deal is a deal; unless proven unconstitutional.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well it looked too good to be true when it was signed, Sudan is not going to let South Sudan keep all of that oil.
Click to expand...


Tough luck! Then Sudan should not have written up and signed agreement that it did not intend to honor.


----------



## High_Gravity

LAfrique said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LAfrique said:
> 
> 
> 
> I wish the Sudanese government would honor whatever deal was signed in the CPA. A deal is a deal; unless proven unconstitutional.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well it looked too good to be true when it was signed, Sudan is not going to let South Sudan keep all of that oil.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Tough luck! Then Sudan should not have written up and signed agreement that it did not intend to honor.
Click to expand...


What the hell are you talking about?


----------



## LAfrique

High_Gravity, stop the too much drinking and smoking! Did you not just say "Sudan is not going to let South Sudan keep all of that oil"? Thus my response:

"Tough luck! Then Sudan should not have written up and signed agreement that it did not intend to honor."


----------



## High_Gravity

LAfrique said:


> High_Gravity, stop the too much drinking and smoking! Did you not just say "Sudan is not going to let South Sudan keep all of that oil"? Thus my response:
> 
> "Tough luck! Then Sudan should not have written up and signed agreement that it did not intend to honor."



Thats just the thing your response makes no sense, I said Sudan is not going to let the South keep the oil and your saying tough luck, Sudan should not have written up the agreement? who are you siding with here the north or the south?


----------



## High_Gravity

Fighting ramps up in Sudan border regions








> Fears of another civil war are playing out in Sudan as troops led by President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir have overrun towns and attacked tribesmen loyal to the south around a contested border region of oil reserves and well-armed militias.
> 
> Bloodshed and streams of refugees are a dangerous prelude to July 9, when southern Sudan, after decades of conflict that left more than 2 million dead, gains independence. The south will inherit the bulk of the nation's oil supplies and the incursions by northern forces appear to be part of Bashir's strategy to press the south for last-minute concessions.
> 
> The north's economy is struggling and Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region, is loath to let billions of dollars in oil revenue slip away. U.S. and other Western officials worry, however, that Khartoum's attacks along the border and in a neighboring northern state could tip the country into war and upset a volatile stretch of East Africa.
> 
> Northern troops and tanks captured the contested Abyei border region last month, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes. Holding Abyei would give Bashir a larger share of oil or allow him to negotiate money from the south in return for withdrawing his soldiers. The north and south have yet to agree on boundaries or a formula to share oil revenue.
> 
> The northern-controlled oil state of South Kordofan has also turned volatile. The state is filled with militants who battled the north in the civil war that ended with a 2005 peace agreement. Bashir sent his army into the area last week when tension rose after a northern-backed candidate, who was also wanted by the International Criminal Court, was elected governor.
> 
> The United Nations says fighting between southern and northern elements has forced at least 40,000 people to flee Southern Kordofan's capital, Kadugli. The north claims the Southern People's Liberation Movement, or SPLM, which runs the southern government, is instigating trouble. The south contends the north has invented that pretext to harden its grip across the Nuba Mountains and increase pressure on the border.
> 
> "The government in Khartoum seems to have taken a more belligerent and proactive military approach to the situation, perhaps thinking this gives them some advantages in the negotiations, first by the military takeover in Abyei and then by sending forces into South Kordofan," said Princeton N. Lyman, U.S. envoy to Sudan, in an interview with Voice of America. "I'm not sure why the government chose in the last few weeks to turn to this kind of a policy, but it is very, very threatening to the whole negotiating process."
> 
> Bashir and SPLM President Salva Kiir met Sunday for talks in Ethiopia, with the Sudanese media reporting that Bashir has agreed to pull back his troops from Abyei before July 9 and replace them with Ethiopian peacekeepers under the United Nations flag. The report could not be independently confirmed. Bashir has reneged on previous promises.



Sudan border: Fighting ramps up in Sudan's Abyei, Southern Kordofan regions - latimes.com


----------



## Baruch Menachem

He has got a huge military and he needs to pay for it.   He can't afford it on his own dime.   He has to use someone else's money.


----------



## High_Gravity

Obama calls for South Sudan cease-fire



> With just three weeks to go until South Sudan officially becomes Africas newest nation, serious fighting between southern and northern Sudanese forces are already pushing this soon-to-be country to the brink of outright war.
> 
> Fighting rages in Sudan's Southern Kordofan Supplies run low in Sudan's embattled border regions South Sudan's army contributes to violence, confusion on the ground In the past few weeks, troops loyal to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir have taken control of the contested areas of Abyei and South Kordofan, border regions that have strong local support for South Sudans ruling party, the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM).
> 
> Both Abyei and South Kordofan were supposed to hold local votes this year to determine whether they would join the fledgling state of South Sudan or remain part of the North, but those votes have been delayed. Current fighting seems to put a peaceful, democratic resolution of their status out of reach  for now.
> 
> 
> Mediators from the African Union have brokered a tentative peace in Abyei, with Mr. Bashir pledging to withdraw his forces from the town of Abyei and both sides agreeing to a deployment of Ethiopian peacekeepers under the AU banner.
> 
> President Obama added his weight to calls for a cease-fire today, stressing the need for a political solution.
> 
> "There is no military solution," Mr. Obama said in an audio message issued through Voice of America. "The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan must live up to their responsibilities. The government of Sudan must prevent a further escalation of this crisis by ceasing its military actions immediately, including aerial bombardments, forced displacements, and campaigns of intimidation."
> 
> Splitting up Sudan into two separate countries was never going to be easy, especially since official borders between the two are not yet demarcated. And there are still questions about how to handle the nomadic communities that shift seasonally between territories that will end up in two different countries. But some human rights groups charge that the recent fighting led by Bashirs troops is an attempt at ethnic cleansing, pushing out ethnic groups that live in the North but politically align themselves with the South.
> 
> Sign up for our daily World Editor's Picks newsletter. Our best stories, in your inbox.
> 
> Satellite Sentinel Project, a Washington-based advocacy group, says it has satellite images showing that the North's army, the Sudanese Armed Forces, burned about one-third of all civilian buildings in Abyei in an attempt to force out ethnic Ngok Dinka residents who tend to side with South Sudan's SPLM.
> 
> Northern troops continue to bomb SPLM positions around the South Kordofan capital of Kadugli and UN aid officials report that as many as 65 people may have been killed and 60,000 others displaced. Fighting in the Abyei region has displaced tens of thousands more, most of them seeking shelter across the official border inside South Sudan.
> 
> Whether the fighting is an attempt to establish North Sudans status as the stronger party in the North-South relationship or to scupper South Sudans chances of survival as an independent state remains to be seen. In either case, the effect will be devastating for the leaders of the oil rich, but underdeveloped South Sudan, who already had a daunting task of building a nation from the ground up.



Obama calls for South Sudan cease-fire - CSMonitor.com


----------



## High_Gravity

North, south Sudan agree to pull troops from Abyei








> Reporting from Khartoum, Sudan Leaders of northern and southern Sudan agreed Monday to demilitarize the disputed border region of Abyei after an incursion by northern forces, which still occupy the region.
> 
> The two sides signed a pact in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, where former South African President Thabo Mbeki acted as a mediator. He told reporters that Ethiopian peacekeepers would be dispatched under the U.N. flag to patrol the oil-rich area. The exact number will be decided at a U.N. meeting in New York, he said.
> 
> Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his country was ready to send peacekeepers in order to prevent a new north-south war over Abyei. In New York, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice called for swift implementation of the demilitarization agreement.
> 
> "We welcome the news that the parties have just signed an agreement," she said in remarks to the U.N. Security Council.
> 
> After decades of fighting, southern Sudan, which holds the bulk of the nation's oil reserves, is set to gain independence on July 9. Last month, northern troops and tanks streamed into the contested Abyei region, sending tens of thousands of civilians fleeing south.
> 
> Last week, Sudanese President Omar Hussein Ahmed Bashir agreed to pull back his troops, but upon his return from Ethiopia, he initially denied an agreement had been reached. Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region, said last week that the incursion was aimed at protecting civilians in the disputed territory.
> 
> Aldirderi Mohammed Ahmed, head of the Abyei branch of the north's ruling National Congress Party, said the agreement Monday fulfilled government demands that the south also withdraw its forces from the region.
> 
> Still unsettled are the boundaries for the region and a formula for sharing oil revenue after the mostly animist and Christian south voted in a March referendum to secede.
> 
> Thomas Wani, a leading figure in the south's Southern People's Liberation Movement, said his party welcomed the agreement but was skeptical because of the north's history of broken promises.
> 
> "I really don't trust the NCP," he said, referring to the ruling party in Khartoum. "They agree today but they revoke it tomorrow."
> 
> Elsewhere in Sudan, heavy fighting was reported between northern and southern forces in Southern Kordofan, the province that includes Abyei.



Abyei Sudan: North, south Sudan agree to pull troops from Abyei - latimes.com


----------



## Ropey

Oh it's going to be a fight, there's no doubt HG. 

Where do we see Muslims appreciating other cultures? I don't mean tolerating them until someone kills a few to take the desire to kill the unbelievers down a few notches.

There are 57 Muslim countries.  Where do we see ONE of them treating their minorities with more than a low tolerance?


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> Oh it's going to be a fight, there's no doubt HG.
> 
> Where do we see Muslims appreciating other cultures? I don't mean tolerating them until someone kills a few to take the desire to kill the unbelievers down a few notches.
> 
> *There are 57 Muslim countries.  Where do we see ONE of them treating their minorities with more than a low tolerance?*



I knew the North would not just let the South have all that oil to itself, it sounded too good to be true to begin with. Sudan wins by keeping the South a poor poverty stricken shit hole, if the South becomes succesful it makes the North look bad. As far as your question about which Muslim country has minorities and treats them fairly, I really can't think of one right now and that is sad. Countries like Iraq, Egypt and Pakistan had a chance to show on the world stage how Muslims treat their minorities and they fucked it up.


----------



## Ropey

High_Gravity said:


> I knew the North would not just let the South have all that oil to itself, it sounded too good to be true to begin with. Sudan wins by keeping the South a poor poverty stricken shit hole, if the South becomes succesful it makes the North look bad. As far as your question about which Muslim country has minorities and treats them fairly, I really can't think of one right now and that is sad. Countries like Iraq, Egypt and Pakistan had a chance to show on the world stage how Muslims treat their minorities and they fucked it up.



This is just a method to keep the region under some form of control until  the next Hegemonic war.  It comes. China is supporting both Shia and Sunni for the Middle East War as well as supporting armed action in Africa. Turkey is gearing up to expand borders. Iran is doing the same. New military blocs are being formed for the purpose of this upcoming war.  The ramp up is seen in the countries that are too small to hide it.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> I knew the North would not just let the South have all that oil to itself, it sounded too good to be true to begin with. Sudan wins by keeping the South a poor poverty stricken shit hole, if the South becomes succesful it makes the North look bad. As far as your question about which Muslim country has minorities and treats them fairly, I really can't think of one right now and that is sad. Countries like Iraq, Egypt and Pakistan had a chance to show on the world stage how Muslims treat their minorities and they fucked it up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is just a method to keep the region under some form of control until  the next Hegemonic war.  It comes. China is supporting both Shia and Sunni for the Middle East War as well as supporting armed action in Africa. Turkey is gearing up to expand borders. Iran is doing the same. New military blocs are being formed for the purpose of this upcoming war.  The ramp up is seen in the countries that are too small to hide it.
Click to expand...


I was hoping for a change in the South Sudan because the people in charge of running that country all grew up in war, they have been fighting an insurgency against the North for decades, and it looks like they will be in a war footing for a while still. Its a shame because South Sudan has the resources to actually succeed, this is not a barren land with nothing like Somalia or the Congo. Hopefully the South can get some Military help and training from the US and Israel than because the North is defnently getting that and more from the Arabs and the Chinese.


----------



## Ropey

High_Gravity said:


> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> I knew the North would not just let the South have all that oil to itself, it sounded too good to be true to begin with. Sudan wins by keeping the South a poor poverty stricken shit hole, if the South becomes succesful it makes the North look bad. As far as your question about which Muslim country has minorities and treats them fairly, I really can't think of one right now and that is sad. Countries like Iraq, Egypt and Pakistan had a chance to show on the world stage how Muslims treat their minorities and they fucked it up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is just a method to keep the region under some form of control until  the next Hegemonic war.  It comes. China is supporting both Shia and Sunni for the Middle East War as well as supporting armed action in Africa. Turkey is gearing up to expand borders. Iran is doing the same. New military blocs are being formed for the purpose of this upcoming war.  The ramp up is seen in the countries that are too small to hide it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I was hoping for a change in the South Sudan because the people in charge of running that country all grew up in war, they have been fighting an insurgency against the North for decades, and it looks like they will be in a war footing for a while still. Its a shame because South Sudan has the resources to actually succeed, this is not a barren land with nothing like Somalia or the Congo. *Hopefully the South can get some Military help and training from the US and Israel than because the North is defnently getting that and more from the Arabs and the Chinese.*
Click to expand...


The US will not go in there until the Hegemonic war begins as the last thing they want is more boots on the ground when they are trying to remove the boots on the ground for the upcoming war. They will support by armament, but the North is militarily powerful.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> This is just a method to keep the region under some form of control until  the next Hegemonic war.  It comes. China is supporting both Shia and Sunni for the Middle East War as well as supporting armed action in Africa. Turkey is gearing up to expand borders. Iran is doing the same. New military blocs are being formed for the purpose of this upcoming war.  The ramp up is seen in the countries that are too small to hide it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I was hoping for a change in the South Sudan because the people in charge of running that country all grew up in war, they have been fighting an insurgency against the North for decades, and it looks like they will be in a war footing for a while still. Its a shame because South Sudan has the resources to actually succeed, this is not a barren land with nothing like Somalia or the Congo. *Hopefully the South can get some Military help and training from the US and Israel than because the North is defnently getting that and more from the Arabs and the Chinese.*
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> The US will not go in there until the Hegemonic war begins as the last thing they want is more boots on the ground when they are trying to remove the boots on the ground for the upcoming war. They will support by armament, but the North is militarily powerful.
Click to expand...


I don't think we should put Troops into South Sudan just yet but I would like to see us bring their Military over for training and provide them with weapons, like we do with Ethiopia and Kenya.


----------



## High_Gravity

Dominic Deng Diing, a refugee in the U.S., educates 3,000 children back in South Sudan








> Dominic Deng Diing's first teachers were his uncles, who sang the ABCs to the then 6-year-old as they undertook the painstaking walk from Sudan to Ethiopia in the mid-1980s.
> 
> Sudanese 'Lost Boys' in US, men now, look homeward to new nation Signs point to northern Sudan's targeting of civilians in border region Obama calls for South Sudan cease-fire Fighting rages in Sudan's Southern Kordofan South Sudan's worst enemy: its own armed forces? Mr. Diing's brief foray into education was cut short when his uncles and brothers died of starvation during the trek, along with thousands of other "Lost Boys of Sudan," children who fled on foot from the civil war that raged for nearly 20 years.
> 
> But the significance of the early lessons stuck with Diing, now a resettled refugee living in Buffalo, N.Y. He earned his high school degree in Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya, and later completed undergraduate and master's programs in western New York. He's currently working toward a doctorate degree in education.
> 
> 
> "He realizes that without education you have nothing," says Vince Angello, Diing's former business professor at Niagara University.
> 
> Diing is trying to spare more than 3,000 children in South Sudan from his experience. They now attend the two-year-old New Hope Primary School, a project of Diing's Buffalo-based nonprofit group Aid and Care for Africa.
> 
> Just 21 teachers and five administrators preside over the school. Students from 22 villages in Diing's home state of Aweil walk miles to reach the school, often with empty stomachs and the fear of meeting wild animals in forests they must cross through.
> 
> "We told parents that this is a dangerous situation, that their children could end up being attacked by lions," Diing recalled. "But the parents say, 'My kids staying in the village without education will be just like that, anyway  death.' "
> 
> Some 55 percent of the students are orphans, living with foster families. They include 10 of the 34 children Diing sponsors himself and his mother looks after. The remaining 24 live with two of his sisters in Kenya and Uganda, where they can receive care for various ailments.
> 
> In total, Diing supports about 50 people aside from his mother, including his deceased father's seven other wives.
> 
> "I live a simple life here," says Diing, speaking at a buffet restaurant near his tiny apartment just north of Buffalo's downtown. "But it's the same as my friends do  the little amount we make, we share."
> 
> Diing allocates 15 percent of his monthly income to support Aid and Care, for which fundraising has been difficult. He hopes to construct a sister secondary school by 2015 and is aiming to raise $400,000.



Dominic Deng Diing, a refugee in the U.S., educates 3,000 children back in South Sudan - CSMonitor.com


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan Border Violence: 73,000 Flee, U.N. Says 








> KHARTOUM, June 22 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Wednesday 73,000 people had fled violence in Sudan's Southern Kordofan border state after more than two weeks of fighting between the northern army and southern-aligned troops.
> 
> Sudan's south will become an independent country on July 9, but fighting along the ill-defined border has raised tension ahead of the split. North and south have yet to resolve issues such as how to manage the oil industry and divide debt.
> 
> Fighting broke out in earnest on June 5 in Southern Kordofan -- a northern oil state that borders the south -- and has escalated to include artillery and warplanes as the north has tried to crush what it calls an armed rebellion.
> 
> The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the state capital of Kadugli and the surrounding area had been generally calm from Sunday through Tuesday, although some smaller clashes were reported across the state.
> 
> "At least 73,000 people were initially displaced throughout central and eastern localities of the Southern Kordofan state as a result of fighting," it said, citing figures from the Sudanese Red Crescent, Humanitarian Aid Commission and U.N. agencies in Kadugli.
> 
> "Some of these people have now returned to their homes".
> 
> Separately, the U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said six of its national staff members had been arrested by the Sudanese military at Kadugli airport on Wednesday, which it called a violation of an agreement that guarantees its staff immunity.
> 
> "The parties to the conflict must uphold their commitment to protect civilians and ensure freedom of movement for U.N. staff regardless of their religious, ethnic, or political affiliations," spokesman Kouider Zerrouk said.
> 
> A spokesman for the northern military was not immediately available to comment, but UNMIS said security forces had accused its staff members of participating in illegal activities.



Sudan Border Violence: 73,000 Flee, U.N. Says


----------



## High_Gravity

Providing air defense for South Sudan not ideal, but best available option 








> In a recent post for Think Progress, guest blogger Lauren Jenkins raises some salient concerns about the provision of air defense capabilities to the Government of South Sudan, an idea that Rep. Don Payne, Democrat of New Jersey), proposed during last weeks hearing on Sudan. Given that Enough endorsed this approach in a press release that same day, its worth taking a moment to address some of these concerns.
> 
> Providing air defense capabilities to the South Sudan government is neither an ideal response to the rising violence in Sudan, nor a step that should be undertaken rashly. But the chilling reports coming out of the Nuba Mountains suggest the wider potential for mass violence in the region and demand a consideration of all the options available to protect civilians from further harm, consistent with the international Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which is premised on the idea that the international community must act when a government abdicates its own responsibility to protect its citizens and commits atrocities.
> 
> Unfortunately, the options available are not good. Strengthening UN peacekeepers in the region sounds appealing, but the fact is that the Government of Sudan has been dropping bombs near UN bases in South Kordofan and some of the Egyptian peacekeepers in the region have been accused of siding with the Sudanese army and have lost the trust of local populations. Moreover, in response to mounting violence in Abyei, and to fighting between the SPLA and militias in South Sudan, the UN response has been to stay out of the way. A deal to get a robust Ethiopian peacekeeping force into Abyei is a welcome development, but it should be clear that UN peacekeepers have proven themselves unable to credibly protect the most vulnerable of Sudanese civilians at present.
> 
> What about a no-fly zone? Jenkins notes the controversy this proposal generated when it was endorsed by Hillary Clinton in 2007, but the more recent example is Libya, where the UN imposed a no-fly zone and authorized the much more significant military action currently underway. In Darfur, the problem with a no-fly zone is that it would have threatened humanitarian access to the millions of displaced persons in the region. Today in South Kordofan, humanitarian access has been almost completely blocked by the Sudanese Armed Forces, such as through the bombing of the airfield at Kauda, which would have been essential to getting aid into the region. But the fact is that even if a no-fly zone could help deter further bombing, there is little prospect for international authorization, especially with Russia and China ready to block any such action because of their perception that Western governments have taken a civilian protection mandate in Libya and used it to pursue regime change. The deadlock at the Security Council has not just taken a no-fly zone off the table, but also blocked additional measures that could be considered, such as an expanded arms embargo on the Sudanese government, to say nothing of direct military action.



Providing air defense for South Sudan not ideal, but best available option - CSMonitor.com


----------



## Ropey

Israel and South Sudan have begun full diplomatic talks. This means political, financial, administrative and militarily.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> Israel and South Sudan have begun full diplomatic talks. This means political, financial, administrative and militarily.


----------



## High_Gravity

Germany's Westerwelle urges more compromise in Sudan




> Khartoum - Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle urged Thursday a quick settling of disputes between the two parts of Sudan as their legal separation approaches in two weeks' time.
> 
> Germany will occupy the Security Council presidency for the month of July when the sensitive handover to independence takes place.
> 
> The separation of the future state of South Sudan must not fail 'just before the finishing line,' he said amid talks in Khartoum.
> 
> Both sides had to settle their remaining disputes to that the 'independence process proceeds fairly peacefully,' he said. 'It must not lead to new conflicts,' Westerwelle added.
> 
> The German minister made no appointment to see Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for allegedly ordering crimes against humanity in Darfur province.
> 
> Westerwelle's schedule included meetings with Vice President Ali Taha and Foreign Minister Ali Karti.
> 
> In a referendum, 99 per cent of the southern Sudanese voted at the start of this year for independence from the Arabic-speaking north.
> 
> The United Nations will supervise the handover on July 9. Outstanding issues include border disputes. Both sides agreed only a few days ago to demilitarize one contested region, Abyei. The redistribution of oil income and sovereign debt is also in dispute.
> 
> Germany is to top up its relief appropriation for refugees in Sudan by 1 million euros (1.4 million dollars) to 4.2 million euros, Westerwelle said during the visit. He appealed for relief groups to be allowed free access to the South Kordofan conflict area.
> 
> The minister's schedule included a visit to Darfur, where the death toll since 2003 in fighting between rebels, the army and pro-government forces is estimated at 300,000. More than 3 million people are displaced there.



Germany's Westerwelle urges more compromise in Sudan - Monsters and Critics


----------



## High_Gravity

New nation of South Sudan needs a hand up



> As the United States prepares to celebrate its 235th birthday, a new nation is being formed half a world away in East Africa. South Sudan is scheduled to officially become a new, independent country  the world's 196th  on July 9, just days after our own Independence Day celebrations.
> 
> This is a truly historic event, the creation of a nation after 50 years of devastating civil war, and I hope all of us in the U.S. and around the world will celebrate this occasion with the people of South Sudan. After all, this is not just a victory for the South Sudanese; this is a victory for everyone who believes in the right of people to determine their own destiny, free from oppression and violence.
> 
> Yet, let us also remember that the challenges ahead are immense. South Sudan is starting with an infrastructure severely weakened from years of neglect and further strained by hundreds of thousands of refugees from areas such as Darfur who are pouring over the border in hopes of a new life. The sad reality is that South Sudan is hardly able to take care of its own; the health system is crippled; many clinics are closed or without medicine. Reports vary, but most agree there are fewer than 500 South Sudanese doctors, most of whom don't have advanced degrees, and fewer than 100 specialists, leaving many in need of health care with no place to go.
> 
> My organization, IMA World Health, recently collected data in two of South Sudan's 10 states, where we are leading health recovery efforts. It revealed that less than 20 percent of all children are vaccinated against routine diseases such as tetanus and measles; nearly 90 percent of expectant women deliver at home without any assistance from a trained midwife or doctor. Clearly, we have much work to do to ensure the success and health of this new nation.
> 
> President Barack Obama and our government  along with the international community as a whole  need to continue to be thoroughly committed to promoting lasting peace, a necessary foundation for progress. We as individuals also have the responsibility to become personally involved in meeting the needs of others: those in our own communities as well as distant neighbors. We can do this by actively learning about the history and current situation in South Sudan; supporting organizations that are working alongside the South Sudanese; and contacting our elected officials to make sure that the needs of the country are not forgotten.
> 
> I was in Juba last December and discussed with the Ministry of Health the challenges it faces. As a Maryland-based health nonprofit, we know how to efficiently provide basic supplies, properly train health care workers, develop a functioning health system knitting remote rural clinics to larger hospitals, and devise plans for the provision of a basic package of health services that are essential for the health of this young nation.
> 
> We and other organizations like ours are committed to providing this assistance as much as we can in our respective fields, but it is ultimately up to the people of South Sudan to make their vision for their nation a reality. This work is not about handouts; it's about empowering people to own the solutions and the work themselves  even if it means a longer process. South Sudan greatly needs our expertise, resources and support to be a catalyst for its long-term development.



New nation of South Sudan needs a hand up - baltimoresun.com


----------



## High_Gravity

Weeks Before Independence, South Sudan Teeters








> South Sudan is gearing up for its independence celebrations, but for the United Nation's newest country, formidable challenges lay ahead. Weeks before it formally breaks off from Sudan, the south is already under attack while its substantial oil resources hold out the promise of wealth but the threat of waste and corruption.
> 
> The city of Abyei, control of which is disputed by the north and south, has been occupied by 5,000 Sudanese soldiers for the past three weeks, forcing its 20,000 residents to flee. Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir is threatening to block the pipeline carrying oil out of South Sudan unless it hands over half of its oil revenue.
> 
> Armed militias backed by Al-Bashir are wreaking havoc across South Sudan, which Jack Kalpakian, a political scientist at Al-Akhawayn University in Morocco and a native of Sudan, said is the most immediate threat to the south's viability. Acknowledging the dangers, the United Nations Security Council authorized the deployment of 4,200 Ethiopian peacekeeping soldiers in the region, ensuring the withdrawal of Sudanese troops on Monday.
> 
> "The north will accept the independence of the south, and then undermine it," Kalpakian told The Media Line.  "The north is sponsoring paramilitaries in the South. The south's challenge is to integrate these movements into the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)." The SPLA was the south's main rebel movement which spearheaded the insurgency against the north.
> 
> Independence has been a lengthy and precarious affair for South Sudan. A 22-year civil war between north and south ended in 2005 followed by a referendum on independence in January, with the South Sudanese overwhelmingly endorsed secession. South Sudan is one of the worlds least developed countries. Even basic information about the country, such as its estimated population of eight million people, is subject to dispute.
> 
> At least 16 people, including eight women and children, were killed when a Sudanese war plane bombed a village in the Nuba mountains, which f has been the scene of daily aerial attacks in a new war along the country's volatile north-south border.
> 
> Kalpakian said that if the paramilitary movements arent disbanded, the country risked deteriorating into a failed state. Worse, Kalpakian predicted the south could encourage insurgency in regions of the north such as Darfur and South Kordofan, which are engaged in their own rebellions against the government.
> U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday expressed concern about serious human rights abuses and ethnic violence in Sudan's flashpoint border province of South Kordofan.
> "Tens of thousands of people have been driven from their homes, and there are reports of very serious human rights abuses and violence targeting individuals based on their ethnicity and political affiliation," Clinton said.
> Abyei was granted special status and jointly administered by representatives of both the north and the south. The north said it was forced to send in troops following a South Sudanese ambush which killed 22 northerners.
> 
> A report issued by the European Union titled "The EU and Sudan: On the Brink of Change," warned of the high likelihood of South Sudan becoming a failed state, even if the international community maintained its current level of assistance and support.



The Media Line


----------



## High_Gravity

Fresh Sudan peace pact builds off of deeper efforts








> Kadugli, Sudan
> Just days before South Sudan becomes the world's newest country on July 9, forces loyal to the semiautonomous region's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) have been sucked into clashes with troops loyal to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted at the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
> 
> On Tuesday, though, Mr. Bashir's Islamist-dominated Northern government signed a peace pact with with the SPLM's northern branch.
> 
> The agreement fell short of calling for a cease-fire in the border state of South Kordofan  the scene of heavy recent fighting that security experts say could reignite the decades-long civil war that killed some 2 million people before it ended in 2005  but it does lay out a framework for shared governance of tumultuous border areas.
> 
> There is no shortage of skepticism as to whether such a pact will bring peace to the area, but it builds off of earlier efforts, including trips to Indonesia's war-torn Aceh Province and Kenya to study ways to resolve entrenched conflict.
> 
> Given the current fighting, it's easy to dismiss the United Nations-funded trips as an abysmal failure. But the participants in the innovative effort to help conflict-ridden countries learn from each other say they feel as if they were participating in the one last chance to find peace  and that they very nearly achieved it.
> 
> "I'm glad we did that trip, and I know we are not going to duplicate what happened in Aceh here in Sudan; we are going to decide our own process," says Ahmed Saeed, a local SPLM parliamentarian who participated in the trips. "But despite this, this is an opportunity to transform our government system. If we do it here in South Kordofan, we can help to transform the rest of Sudan."
> 
> The hopefulness of that statement seemed irreparably lost as Sudanese Army planes bombed Mr. Saeed's SPLM comrades in the mountains around South Kordofan's capital, Kadugli, a couple weeks ago. But it's emblematic of the months of discussions and frenetic travel by senior local leaders of both parties.
> 
> These trips offer a model for future peacemaking.



Fresh Sudan peace pact builds off of deeper efforts - CSMonitor.com


----------



## High_Gravity

UN says Sudan's army continues attacking civilians



> JUBA, Sudan (AP)  The U.N. said in a report Thursday that Sudan is denying it full access to tens of thousands of civilians near an area between north and south Sudan where violence continues less than 10 days before Southern Sudan becomes the world's newest nation.
> 
> The Nuba people  black Africans who have opposed the rule of Sudan's Arab north  have streamed into the Nuba Mountains in search of safety from attacks by Sudan's military in Southern Kordofan, a part of Sudan's north. At least 73,000 have fled.
> 
> An internal U.N. report has said that dozens have been killed by aerial bombardments and gunfire attacks amid reports of door-to-door searches for black Nuba tribesman by the northern military. Because the U.N. and other aid groups cannot access the area, there are no firm numbers.
> 
> Attacks on the Nuba began on June 5 and included the bombing of a U.N. airstrip in Kauda  a large town and Nuba stronghold  preventing aid workers and U.N. personnel from flying in. The Nuba people generally support Southern Sudan and have fought alongside its military against the north during a decades-long civil war that ended in 2005.
> 
> A U.N. Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs report issued Thursday said that it received reports of aerial attacks from June 25-27 that weren't verified but were supported by photographic evidence and eyewitness reports.
> 
> The U.N. report says that the Sudanese government has granted humanitarian access to limited areas of Kadugli where aid groups have offices, but that "access to all other locations continues to be denied."
> 
> The International Rescue Committee said Thursday that international aid agencies also can't access Southern Kordofan. Nearly all international staff working for aid groups and the U.N. peacekeeping mission have been evacuated.
> 
> "We're extremely worried about the safety and well-being of people who live there. We're hearing stories of horrible atrocities," said Susan Purdin who oversees International Rescue Committee programs in Southern Sudan. "There have been numerous reports of targeted ethnic and political killings, the burning and looting of homes and businesses and intense aerial bombardments by the northern military."
> 
> The Nuba people  who practice Islam, Christianity and animism  have been targeted by Khartoum before. A northern military campaign in the 1990s killed as many as 200,000 Nubans. Many experts deemed the attacks a genocide.



The Associated Press: UN says Sudan&#39;s army continues attacking civilians


----------



## GHook93

The Muslim Arabs of Sudan can attack and kill as many Southern Sudanese people because:
(1) Its muslims killing people, not Jews or Christians!
(2) This is Africa!
(3) The victims are black! 
(4) A good chunk of the victims are Christians
(5) Just like the Congo, liberals in Europe and America who give a shit, they will be too busy screaming at Jews!


----------



## High_Gravity

GHook93 said:


> The Muslim Arabs of Sudan can attack and kill as many Southern Sudanese people because:
> (1) Its muslims killing people, not Jews or Christians!
> (2) This is Africa!
> (3) The victims are black!
> (4) A good chunk of the victims are Christians
> (5) Just like the Congo, liberals in Europe and America who give a shit, they will be too busy screaming at Jews!



You are correct G Hook, if this was the other way around and it was Black Africans killing Arab Muslims, all hell would be breaking loose.


----------



## Sunni Man

Ropey said:


> Israel and South Sudan have begun full diplomatic talks. This means political, financial, administrative and militarily.



 Like I always say; Anytime there's a conflict, chaos, or war.

 Look for the instigator. It will always be Zionist Jews and Israel.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sunni Man said:


> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> Israel and South Sudan have begun full diplomatic talks. This means political, financial, administrative and militarily.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Like I always say; Anytime there's a conflict, chaos, or war.
> 
> Look for the instigator. It will always be Zionist Jews and Israel.
Click to expand...


All the Israelis are doing is trying to help a brand new country that is going to need all the help they can get, they bare no blame for the civil wars that have been going on in the Sudan for decades.


----------



## Sunni Man

Sudan at one time was a country where the Muslims and Christians got along just fine.

 Then oil was discovered in the Christians south.

 Western powers covertly started supplying the South with weapons and told them to break away and form their own country.

 Instead of being labeled as terrorists like they should have been.

 The western governments started championing their cause.

 Even though Sudan was a country with a legitimate government fighting against rebels.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sunni Man said:


> Sudan at one time was a country where the Muslims and Christians got along just fine.
> 
> Then oil was discovered in the Christians south.
> 
> Western powers covertly started supplying the South with weapons and told them to break away and form their own country.
> 
> Instead of being labeled as terrorists like they should have been.
> 
> The western governments started championing their cause.
> 
> Even though Sudan was a country with a legitimate government fighting against rebels.



Not everyone the Sudanese are fighting are Christians, the people in Darfur are mostly Muslim and they have no oil, they are dirt poor but they are ethnic Africans. South Sudan has oil yes but I think there is more at stake than just that, this is ethnic/tribal warfare that goes back decades.


----------



## Sunni Man

The media is trying to sell it as a race thing.

 And have been very successful in doing that .

 I know several Sudanese people and what is on the news is vastly different from the truth.

 And Israel has been one of the chief covert weapons suppliers to the South for many years.

 If you think Israel is doing this out of the goodness of their heart and trying to help black Africans then you are seriously gullible.

 They are making money currently off of the conflict and hope to secure lucrative oil contracts in the future.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sunni Man said:


> The media is trying to sell it as a race thing.
> 
> And have been very successful in doing that .
> 
> I know several Sudanese people and what is on the news is vastly different from the truth.
> 
> And Israel has been one of the chief covert weapons suppliers to the South for many years.
> 
> If you think Israel is doing this out of the goodness of their heart and trying to help black Africans then you are seriously gullible.
> 
> They are making money currently off of the conflict and hope to secure lucrative oil contracts in the future.



If the Sudanese were really a united people like you say why did 99% of the South Sudanese vote for independence and to have their own country? I definently don't think the Israelis are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, the South has oil which has many countries interested even us, this is what gives South Sudan the potential to be a decent country. I expect alot of other countries to flock to the South for oil contracts in the future including the US.


----------



## Sunni Man

Read what I had originally posted.

 They were a united people before oil was discovered.

 And Western powers started giving arms to rebals in the south.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sunni Man said:


> Read what I had originally posted.
> 
> They were a united people before oil was discovered.
> 
> And Western powers started giving arms to rebals in the south.



I was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska for 4 years when I was in the service that is near Omaha, Omaha is the place where the US sends refugees from Sudan, usually they were from Darfur or the South. I have talked to a couple of these refugees and some of their biggest complaints was that the North did not dispute the oil wealth fairly, Khartoum took care of the people in the North and the Arab tribes there but barely gave anything to the South or Darfur, most of the people I talked to live in shacks and had no running water and barely any food, this unfair treatment is one of the biggest reasons the people in the South wanted their own country. I think the oil did come into play because the government did not want to, or did not know how to divide it fairly among the different ethnic groups in the Sudan.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan says army to carry on South Kordofan operations



> (Reuters) - Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said the northern army would continue its military operations in the border flashpoint state of South Korfodan, state news agency SUNA said on Friday.
> 
> The northern army has been fighting in the state armed groups allied to South Sudan which is due to become an independent state on July 9.
> 
> A northern state minister said on Wednesday Khartoum had reached in principle a ceasefire with the south in South Kordofan. (Reporting by Khaled Abdelaziz and Ulf Laessing, Khartoum newsroom)



Sudan says army to carry on South Kordofan operations | Reuters


----------



## Ropey

It seems that the only moves that are quick are war moves. The politics in comparison is like molasses in the winter.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> It seems that the only moves that are quick are war moves. The politics in comparison is like molasses in the winter.



Yes, going to war is much faster and quicker than coming up with a diplomatic solution.


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan says it can export oil through East Africa, bypassing Khartoum-run pipelines



> JUBA, Sudan  An official from oil-rich Southern Sudan said Wednesday the government is considering connecting its oil supply to an East African pipeline and bypassing Khartoum-run pipelines, a move that could further deteriorate relations between the north and south as Southern Sudan prepares for independence.
> 
> Southern Sudan will declare its independence on Saturday, but some vital provisions of its split from the north  such as oil rights and wealth-sharing  have not been settled. Last month, northern President Omar al-Bashir said he would block the souths access to the pipelines unless a favorable wealth-sharing agreement was reached.
> 
> 
> The south accounts for more than three-quarters of Sudans total oil output but is reliant on northern refineries and pipelines.
> 
> Southern roads and transport minister Anthony Lino Makana said his government has been meeting with petroleum companies interested in building a pipeline connecting the souths oil to ports in East Africa. He did not specify which companies had approached his government.
> 
> Makana said oil infrastructure in neighboring Kenya will quickly allow the south to pump its oil through existing Kenyan pipelines.
> 
> To put a pipeline is very easy for us, he told reporters in Juba.
> 
> Makana said that at a cost of only a few million dollars, new pipelines will allow the south to refine and pump petrol in the reverse, meaning not from south to north, as is currently done.
> 
> We wont need to export very far, he added.
> 
> Oil is virtually the only moneymaker for the government of Southern Sudan. Sudan as a whole is the third largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, behind Nigeria and Angola, with exports of some 490,000 barrels a day.
> 
> When the south declares independence on Saturday, it will become of Africas most oil-rich countries. But analysts say underdevelopment and insecurity will continue to plague the diversification of the southern economy. Last year oil revenues accounted for nearly 98 percent of the southern budget.
> 
> Months of tense, on-off negotiation between the northern and southern governments over the future of the oil sector and over any potential sharing of the souths reserves have failed to produce an agreement.



South Sudan says it can export oil through East Africa, bypassing Khartoum-run pipelines - The Washington Post


----------



## Baruch Menachem

The Nothern Sudan is going to be so screwed.


----------



## High_Gravity

Baruch Menachem said:


> The Nothern Sudan is going to be so screwed.



Khartoum has been screwing Darfur, South Sudan and the Nuba people for decades, time for them to get a taste of their own medicine.


----------



## High_Gravity

World's newest country: Can South Sudan limit internal strife?








> When South Sudan becomes the world's newest country Saturday, its upcoming challenges will take a back seat to the euphoria surrounding the historic moment.
> 
> Still, internal conflicts loom large.
> 
> Before the young government can truly focus on the monumental task building a nation from scratch, it must first figure out a way to manage a range of pressing security issues.
> 
> Not only must the nascent, oil-rich country overcome the threat posed by its longtime enemy to the north  the Islamist-dominated government of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court  it must also deal with militias, ethnic divides, and vocal critics within its own borders.
> 
> 
> Analysts warn that if South Sudan's government does not seize the "independence moment" to begin a new chapter in the region's history, then it risks fulfilling the doomsday prophecies fueled by the northern government and other actors opposed to southern secession.
> 
> "Posturing along the border makes clear that [conflict] with the North is not over on July 9," says Zach Vertin, a Sudan analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, referring to ongoing North-South hostilities, such as running battles in the northern border state of South Kordofan and the tense stalemate over the contested Abyei region. "While there will undoubtedly be continued security attention in those areas, at the same time focus increasingly has to turn to the domestic situation both in political and security terms."
> 
> *2,000 killed in six months*
> 
> The United Nations estimates that nearly 2,000 people have been killed in the six months since southerners voted almost unanimously for independence in January.
> 
> Anti-government militia activity, severe army responses to the militias, and armed cattle raids that often spiral into local but deadly ethnic conflicts are the main causes of these deaths. The UN's latest statistics indicate that there are more than 260,000 people displaced in the South this year, which includes an estimated 100,000 who ran for their lives after the northern Sudanese army seized the disputed town of Abyei in mid-May.
> 
> The recent violence also illustrates that the grievances that southern tribes and armed groups have with each other  and with the southern government  are real and will not be resolved overnight.
> 
> *Old wounds reopened*
> 
> Conflicting priorities may well plague South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, who has been praised for bringing friends and foes alike into his government in the past five years. Mr. Kiir's strategy enabled the government to preserve the fragile southern peace that was ushered in when the north-south war ended in 2005.
> 
> When the war ended, healing the wounds between southern ethnic groups through political and military reconciliation was an essential task for the already bloated and at times dangerously dysfunctional army. But these wounds were reopened after Sudan's April 2010 elections, when the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the south's ruling party, used questionable tactics to secure its victory in some remote areas where opposition to its rule was strong.



Birth of a Nation: Can South Sudan limit internal strife? - CSMonitor.com


----------



## Ropey

I understand American action will not be forthcoming, but I don't understand why there is not more help from Britain, France, Germany, etc. etc.

The history of Europe is to look inward until they are smashed.  Then the Calvary comes. This history will repeat regardless that they have a Euro Zone.

This seems to have changed nothing with regards to any security protocol changes as a Zone. So, it's more of the same. Israel is sending help to create the necessary Democratic institutions in S.Sudan.

Not only military support, but in that arena Israel is doing far more than simply streaming weapons to the South. They have military personnel as well as advisers AND combatants helping the South.


----------



## Baruch Menachem

Israel's record in Africa is not particularly good.   They helped Idi Amin take power.   They were buds with the South African government.

I would hope they do better this time.

What would be cool would be if they could get the South Sudan Army to a level of discipline and professionalism as seen by the IDF.     One can hope


----------



## Ropey

Baruch Menachem said:


> Israel's record in Africa is not particularly good.   They helped Idi Amin take power.   They were buds with the South African government.



While I disagreed with Apartheid, South Africa has descended, not ascended. 



Baruch Menachem said:


> I would hope they do better this time.



I would have hoped the Africans would have taken South Africa higher, not lower personally.  It's their country now and the same resources and GNP previously possible are now in a highly corrupt system. It's about Africa, not Israel although Israel has made its share of faux pas and horrid choices.



> What would be cool would be if they could get the South Sudan Army to a level of discipline and professionalism as seen by the IDF.     One can hope



What would be cool would be if the Major powers did something. eh? This is a different arena now than the arena that the US ran from. Maybe they can come back now? Hmmm?

You do know that Hamas *and *Hezbollah are supported militarily in North Sudan?

In other words, they are in the North actively. It's a new time but the old methods still seem to be applying in historical terms and I am nothing if not an old military man.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> I understand American action will not be forthcoming, but I don't understand why there is not more help from Britain, France, Germany, etc. etc.
> 
> The history of Europe is to look inward until they are smashed.  Then the Calvary comes. This history will repeat regardless that they have a Euro Zone.
> 
> This seems to have changed nothing with regards to any security protocol changes as a Zone. So, it's more of the same. Israel is sending help to create the necessary Democratic institutions in S.Sudan.
> 
> Not only military support, but in that arena Israel is doing far more than simply streaming weapons to the South. They have military personnel as well as advisers AND combatants helping the South.



I know the US has their hands full in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya but I would like to see the US take a more active role in training and equiping the South Sudan Military, sooner rather than later. We send officers from countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan to US Military bases for training, I know because I have seen them, so why not South Sudan?


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan Independence: Challenges Facing World's Newest Nation 








> JUBA, Sudan -- The people of South Sudan finally get their own country on Saturday, an emotional independence celebration few thought possible during a half century of civil wars and oppression that left more than 2 million dead.
> 
> Military parades and celebrations will burst forth Saturday in front of dozens of visiting world leaders. But when that party ends, South Sudan must face grim realities: It will be one of the most underdeveloped countries on the planet, only 15 percent of its citizens can read and fears of renewed conflict abound.
> 
> South Sudan's successful independence drive was made possible by a 2005 peace deal between Sudan's north and south. Last January, former guerrilla fighters shed tears as they cast votes to break away from the control of the Khartoum-based north.
> 
> Among those who cast ballots at special U.S. polling stations were some of the 3,800 war orphans known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, who ran away from war and were taken in by communities in the United States.
> 
> In the southern capital of Juba this week, the Republic of South Sudan's new national anthem blared from cell phones.
> 
> "It took a combination of bullets and ballots to attain our hard-earned independence," reads a new sign next to a main intersection here.
> 
> Albino Gaw, a member of a minority tribe who works for the government in Juba, said he's excited about the south's independence. The 30-year-old former child soldier said he's pessimistic though about how much work lies ahead.
> 
> "The day will be good but people are expecting something more than we've gotten in the past five years," he said. "A lot of work needs to be done by the government. Otherwise things will be like they were before."
> 
> The world's newest capital, the Nile River city of Juba, was war-ravaged ruins six years ago, when the 1983-2005 north-south civil war ended. It was the second war between the mostly Arab north and the south, where traditional African religions and Christianity are practiced.
> 
> Now the presidential motorcade is practicing its run through the city for Saturday afternoon, when world leaders will watch South Sudan President Salva Kiir host the country's inauguration.
> 
> U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend, as will former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice and Gen. Carter Ham, commander of the U.S. Africa Command. Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, a deeply unpopular man in Juba, is also expected to attend.
> 
> Despite the excitement, South Sudan is saddled with problems. Violence  from cattle raids and rebel battles  has killed nearly 2,400 people this year, the U.N. says. Seven different rebel militias operate in the south.



South Sudan Independence: Challenges Facing World's Newest Nation


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan expatriates flock home to witness birth of new nation








> (CNN) -- Victoria Bol sits under the blazing sun in the soon-to-be world's newest capital of Juba, a city of red soil, winding dirt roads and scattered tin-roofed homes.
> 
> She watches in delight as children frolic on the streets and women mill about with the new flag of South Sudan wrapped around their shoulders.
> 
> A few feet away, boisterous neighbors spray the rare paved road with a hose, playing with the soapy suds as they hum the new anthem of a nation on the eve of its birth.
> 
> "Oh my goodness, I cannot believe this day is finally here," says Bol, a resident of Grand Rapids, Michigan. "It is very emotional. I'm excited, but I'm also thinking of all the people who died for this to happen."
> 
> Bol is among scores who have returned home to witness the birth of South Sudan, as it officially splits from the government based in the north on Saturday.
> 
> "The airport is packed and homes are filled with people coming in from all over the world," Bol says. "We lost almost everything -- our relatives, our homes, everything we own -- to get to this point. There was no way I was missing this."
> 
> 
> She fled Juba in 1991 as mortars rained from the sky, and has not set foot in her homeland since then.
> 
> "We were at the airport trying to leave when the north started bombing nearby," she says. "Everything shook. We all started screaming and hiding."
> 
> Sudan's Muslim north has been in conflict with the majority Christian south for decades. The civil war created a class of refugees who drifted in and out of neighboring countries -- many on foot -- to flee violence and famine that left about 2 million people dead.
> 
> In January, South Sudan voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum to split, which was part of a 2005 peace deal that helped end the war.
> 
> Dallas resident Abuk Makuac escaped Juba in 1984.
> 
> "I wish my many relatives who died in the civil war were here to witness the separation into a new country," she says. "From here on, I know that they did not die in vain."
> 
> Scores who fled the long conflict are coming home to a region that has not changed much over the years. The infrastructure is still lacking -- with about 30 miles of paved roads in all of South Sudan, an area the size of Texas.
> 
> "It is no Michigan," Bol says with a chuckle, "but it's home, and there is a feeling of solace you get at home that you will never get anywhere else."
> 
> Water remains a luxury in most communities and security is still tense, especially in regions bordering the north where violence still rages days before independence.
> 
> But patriotism trumps the challenges, say the returnees, who gathered this week in Juba to discuss how they will help move their new country forward.
> 
> Gordon Ajak, who left Sudan in 1989, hopes to capitalize on the opportunities in his homeland after he decides what to invest in.
> 
> The 46-year-old bought a one-way ticket from Canada, where he works as a counselor.
> 
> "I left Sudan because ... we were not wanted by the government in the north," he says. "We have our own country now. It is time to come back to invest and help my people."
> 
> Business analysts warn that the minimal infrastructure in South Sudan can lead to a difficult business climate.
> 
> "Good business skills will come at a premium and there will be a ferocious demand for talent," says Robert Taiwo, director of Whitespace Advisory, a global firm that works with businesses looking to invest in Africa.



South Sudan expatriates flock home to witness birth of new nation - CNN.com


----------



## High_Gravity

Lessons from East Timor for South Sudan: Three Things Nation #193 Can Learn from #191








> The verdict, it seems, is already in. Many are already calling South Sudan, which will become the world's 193rd nation on July 9, a soon-to-be failed state. Indeed, the prognosis is grim: as its secession from Sudan has drawn near, nearly 2000 people in the south have been killed in inter-militia fighting.  Hundreds more are dead after a month-long campaign by Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to clear South Kordofan, a disputed state in the north, of rebels who fought with the south for independence.
> 
> The development challenges of the new nation are also daunting, to say the least. As United Nations General Ban Ki-Moon wrote in a July 8 editorial in the International Herald Tribune, On the day of its birth, South Sudan will rank near the bottom of all recognized human development indices. The statistics are truly humbling.
> 
> There is a big job to be done in the shiny new Republic, and thousands of miles away on the other side of the planet, the recent history of a much different nation may offer some guidance in how to do it. In 2002, East Timor became Nation No. 191 (Montenegro is 192). It faced similar predictions of failure as it prepared to secede from the massive and powerful state of Indonesia. Like South Sudan, after decades of unrest, residents had voted overwhelmingly for independence. And like South Sudan, nobody thought they could pull it off.
> 
> Yet today East Timor  while certainly not without problems  is a functioning state that has successfully held democratic elections, maintained a healthy opposition in the process, and avoided the resource curse to manage its vast oil revenues with reasonable success. It proves that most of the skeptics were wrong, says Geoffrey Robinson, a professor at UCLA who worked as a U.N. adviser in East Timor in 1999 in the run-up to independence. All of the pundits said it will never work, [saying] It's too poor. It's too small. There's no infrastructure.' Things you would have read about colonized countries in the 1940s.
> 
> The first ten years of East Timor's independence, of course, have not been perfect. But there are a few important pointers that South Sudan can take away from East Timor's decade of failures and successes. Robinson, who also authored the book If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die: How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor, outlined a few lessons that South Sudan might glean from its predecessor for TIME.
> 
> *Don't underestimate the legacy of violence. *
> 
> In places where violence has ruled people's lives for decades, abrupt peace can become a vacuum that sometimes fills back up  with more violence. People who have been involved in long term violence don't simply stop it once one side goes away, says Robinson. People learn violence.
> 
> Like South Sudan, where two million people died in the north and south during two civil wars spanning decades, East Timor was born out of death. In 1975, Indonesia invaded the then-Portuguese colony, and subsequently over 100,000 East Timorese were killed in a genocidal counterinsurgency aimed at rooting out independence-minded political factions and their supporters. In 1999, after the Indonesian dictator Suharto stepped down and a new government in Jakarta allowed East Timor to cast a vote on its future, the population was again subjected to violence at the hands of the Indonesian military and Jakarta-backed militias leading up to and after the referendum.



Lessons from East Timor for South Sudan: Three Things Nation #193 Can Learn from #191 - Global Spin - TIME.com


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan Begins Countdown To Independence 



> JUBA, Sudan (AP)When Southern Sudan becomes the world's newest country on Saturday, its people will rejoice in the streets as it enters statehood as one of the poorest and least developed places on earth.
> 
> But advocates and diplomats warned Friday that when the celebrations subside and the dignitaries leave, unresolved problems between the south and the northern government, could spark renewed conflict along their new international border.
> 
> The internationally-brokered 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of north-south war expires Saturday.
> 
> South Sudan becomes its own nation at midnight. The U.N. recognizes 192 countries; South Sudan will be 193.
> 
> Sudan, the country South Sudan is breaking away from, will recognize the new country as soon as Friday turns to Saturday.


----------



## Ropey

> Crowds go wild as South Sudan marks its independence








> Frenzied crowds went wild in Juba as South Sudan, the world's newest country, marked its long-awaited day of independence from the north when the clock struck midnight last night.





> Among the revellers was South Sudan's information minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, who told Reuters: "It is already the ninth so we are independent. It is now."





> North Sudan's Khartoum government was the first to recognise the new state, hours before the formal split took place, a move that smoothed the way to the division of what was, until Saturday, Africa's largest country.
> 
> The recognition did not dispel fears of future tensions.
> 
> Northern and southern leaders have still not agreed on a list of sensitive issues,* most importantly the exact line of the border and how they will handle oil revenues, the lifeblood of both economies.*



It's still very much a work in progress.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> Crowds go wild as South Sudan marks its independence
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Frenzied crowds went wild in Juba as South Sudan, the world's newest country, marked its long-awaited day of independence from the north when the clock struck midnight last night.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Among the revellers was South Sudan's information minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, who told Reuters: "It is already the ninth so we are independent. It is now."
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> North Sudan's Khartoum government was the first to recognise the new state, hours before the formal split took place, a move that smoothed the way to the division of what was, until Saturday, Africa's largest country.
> 
> The recognition did not dispel fears of future tensions.
> 
> Northern and southern leaders have still not agreed on a list of sensitive issues,* most importantly the exact line of the border and how they will handle oil revenues, the lifeblood of both economies.*
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> *It's still very much a work in progress.*
Click to expand...


You are 100% correct Ropey, it very much is a work in progress. South Sudan is going to have build itself from the ground up, they still need to work on the basics like running water, paved roads, schools, food, building up their economy, training and equiping their Military (which I hope the US will help them with, like Israel has been doing), they have an advantage many poor countries in Africa don't and that is they have oil, but they will have to be careful with corruption, the South does have a long road ahead of it.


----------



## GHook93

High_Gravity said:


> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Crowds go wild as South Sudan marks its independence
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> North Sudan's Khartoum government was the first to recognise the new state, hours before the formal split took place, a move that smoothed the way to the division of what was, until Saturday, Africa's largest country.
> 
> The recognition did not dispel fears of future tensions.
> 
> Northern and southern leaders have still not agreed on a list of sensitive issues,* most importantly the exact line of the border and how they will handle oil revenues, the lifeblood of both economies.*
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> *It's still very much a work in progress.*
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> You are 100% correct Ropey, it very much is a work in progress. South Sudan is going to have build itself from the ground up, they still need to work on the basics like running water, paved roads, schools, food, building up their economy, training and equiping their Military (which I hope the US will help them with, like Israel has been doing), they have an advantage many poor countries in Africa don't and that is they have oil, but they will have to be careful with corruption, the South does have a long road ahead of it.
Click to expand...


I hope they suceed i really do, but Africa's track record for states that succeed is very low! However, they do have oil and that helps!


----------



## High_Gravity

GHook93 said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *It's still very much a work in progress.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You are 100% correct Ropey, it very much is a work in progress. South Sudan is going to have build itself from the ground up, they still need to work on the basics like running water, paved roads, schools, food, building up their economy, training and equiping their Military (which I hope the US will help them with, like Israel has been doing), they have an advantage many poor countries in Africa don't and that is they have oil, but they will have to be careful with corruption, the South does have a long road ahead of it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I hope they suceed i really do, but Africa's track record for states that succeed is very low! However, they do have oil and that helps!
Click to expand...


The oil is definently key however they have to worry about corruption especially since they are a new country, even in Iraq they have the second highest oil reserves in the world after the Saudis and billions go missing all the time and the funds are mismanaged and not spent the right way, the South needs to do better than that and spend the money on the bare necessities their country so badly needs, running water and electricity would be a good start.


----------



## High_Gravity

"Southern Sudan Is Trying to Send Rebels to the North" 



> Sudan: half a century of civil wars. Mass deaths in Darfur. Poor infrastructure. Potential oil wealth. And now the secession of the country's southern part. On July 9, Southern Sudan officially became an independent country. The secession is the culmination of a decades-long conflict between Sudan's largely African South and its Arabic North.
> 
> Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's President, has been issued an arrest warrant by the ICC, accused of genocide in Darfur. As a result, Foreign Minister Ali Karti fills unusually powerful role. In June I met with Karti, a former lawyer, at Sudan's embassy near Buckingham Palace in London.
> 
> Mia Farrow, the actress, who often visits Sudan, tells Metro Karti is "brutal, ruthless and a fanatic." But in person, Karti has a ready smile and the demeanor of a friendly professor. During the interview in the modestly furnished embassy, he sipped strong coffee (sugar, no milk), a Sudanese specialty.
> 
> As we speak, there are clashes between Sudanese and Southern Sudanese troops in the Southern Sudanese region of Abyei. Can Southern Sudan secede peacefully on July 9?
> 
> Everything will go as planned. I don't think clashes here and there will distract us from the process of a peaceful secession of South Sudan.
> 
> So you don't worry about increasing violence?
> 
> No, because the leadership on both sides has decided not to go back to war. Some incidents like this won't distract us. Sometimes the groups go back to their old habits and clash, but it's not a clash between Sudan's Army and the SPLA [Sudan People's Liberation Army, the southern Sudanese rebel group turned political party].
> 
> Southern Sudan will get 75% of oil revenues; the North will get 25%. Do you anticipate a smaller budget and lower living standards?
> 
> We're not losing 75% of oil revenues. We're only losing about 26%, because the South already takes about 50%. It's not easy to adjust quickly, but throughout history we've been used to living modestly. It's only recently that we've had added revenue from oil. We'll look at other sources of revenue, for example agriculture and mining, and they're already starting to compensate for lost oil revenue. Of course, total compensation is a long way away. But we'll expand mining and oil drilling, too. Throughout the past six months we've begun new oil explorations, and it looks promising.
> 
> 
> 
> Recently the Southern Sudanese government in Jiba accused the North of cutting off fuel supplies. What's your reaction?
> 
> The problem is that there are incidents on the border. The authorities in the North have to take measures to stop these incidents, especially when they involve Southern rebels trying to get into the North. So, we had to take action, but that's the result of the actions of some SPLA leaders. They try to send us rebels and problems from the South. They themselves are responsible for the consequences.
> 
> So you're saying that the South was trying to export violence to the North?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> And Khartoum responded by cutting fuel supplies?
> 
> It's not a response; it's a precaution. It's for them to decide whether they want the border to be a means of transporting people and goods, or do they want it to be a means of sending problems to the North?
> 
> Earlier this year Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon of Israel told me that Iran is the gravest threat to Israel today, and that Iran is influencing on Sudan. What's your response?
> 
> The Israelis know that this does not involve the government of Sudan. Sudan is a vast country, and there are many smugglers. The border, especially on the Red Sea, is so long, about 1000 kilometers. It's not easy for the government to restrict the movement of people. Countries like the United States and European countries aren't able to stop smuggling across their borders, so it's not easy for Sudan to stop it either. If Israel wants to connect this smuggling with the government of Sudan, it's up to them, but they know that it has nothing to do with the government. If the Israeli government is concerned about smuggling across Sudan's borders, they're welcome to visit and cooperate with us. But if they're just sending those accusations to find an excuse to attack us, that's not a constructive way of doing things, and it won't stop arms smuggling across Sudan's borders.



Elisabeth Braw: "Southern Sudan Is Trying to Send Rebels to the North"


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan pound to be launched next week








> South Sudan, the world's newest country, will launch its currency next week, officials say.
> 
> The South Sudan pound will feature the image of the late John Garang, the south's most revered leader, the AP news agency reports.
> 
> A 2005 peace deal that Mr Garang signed with Khartoum paved the way for the south's independence on 9 July.
> 
> Analysts say the launch of a currency is one of many challenges facing the new East African state.
> 
> Finance Minister David Deng Athorbei said plane-loads of the South Sudan pound would arrive in the capital, Juba, on Wednesday and it would be in circulation by Monday, the AFP news agency reports.
> 
> Its exchange rate would be fixed one-to-one with the former currency, the Sudanese pound, Mr Athorbei is quoted by AFP as saying.
> 
> *'First football match'*
> 
> He said the South Sudan government had battled to pay salaries for June and July.
> 
> "This difficulty is related to the fact that the Khartoum government did not deliver us the physical cash," Mr Athorbei said.
> 
> The south's independence follows decades of conflict with the north in which some 1.5 million people died.
> 
> Saturday's independence ceremony was held at the mausoleum of Mr Garang, who died just months after signing the peace deal with Khartoum.
> 
> John Garang was for years the charismatic leader of the southern rebels On Sunday evening, South Sudan played its first football match, in the capital, Juba.
> 
> However, the new national team lost 3-1 to Kenyan club side Tusker FC after taking a 1-0 lead.
> 
> South Sudan has not yet been accepted as a member of the world football body Fifa and so the match was not officially recorded.
> 
> South Sudan is rich in oil, but is one of the least developed countries in the world, where one in seven children dies before the age of five.
> 
> Correspondents say keeping both the north and the south stable will be a challenge.
> 
> Fears of a new war resurfaced after recent fighting in the border areas of Abyei and South Kordofan, where some 170,000 people have been forced from their homes.
> 
> Separate deals - and the withdrawal of rival forces from the border - have calmed tensions.
> 
> But the two sides must still decide on issues such as drawing up the new border and how to divide Sudan's debts and oil wealth.



BBC News - South Sudan pound to be launched next week


----------



## High_Gravity

Independent South Sudan is jubilant, wobbly a day later








> Reporting from Juba, South Sudan
> 
> On the day after independence in South Sudan, the modest clock tower in downtown Juba read "Free at Last," and the dirt roadsides were littered with countless paper flags bearing the colors of the new republic. Most of the dignitaries in town for Saturday's big ceremony had flown home, and streets that had been jammed for days  bristling with checkpoints and the machine guns of security forces  were easier to navigate.
> 
> Southern Sudan's shaky path to independence But the city was far from quiet Sunday, the second official day of South Sudan's sovereign existence, as celebrations continued. The national soccer team played Kenya, and families slaughtered goats they had saved for big occasions and invited neighbors to eat.
> 
> Jubilation is everywhere, but in Christian churches, liberation from the mostly Muslim Arab north  made possible by a 2005 peace deal  carried a special resonance. At the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, people danced and chanted, "Salva! Salva! Salva!"  invoking Salva Kiir, the country's first president  and thanked God. At the midday service, the biblical reading was about the Lord delivering his people from bondage to the Promised Land.
> 
> "Today is really a different Sunday," said the Rev. Benjamin Lokio Lemi. "God has brought us back home now."
> 
> He said the regime in Khartoum, the northern capital, had long neglected the Christian south, where children outside the city could still be seen taking classes under the trees because they had no schoolhouses.
> 
> In 1993, Lemi said, northern soldiers captured him and gave him the choice between death and conversion to Islam. Pressure from church officials won his release after a month and a half. During the generations-long civil wars between north and south, "almost everybody in the south lost a relative," Lemi added. But now, "we are telling people to forgive."
> 
> Paul Bonju, a former member of parliament who represented the south in Khartoum, said that when northern President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir ruled both parts of the country, it was common for southerners aspiring to government jobs to drop their Christian names and assume Muslim ones because advancement was otherwise sharply curtailed. "There was marginalization," Bonju said, "and there was persecution."
> 
> Nearby, as he spoke, scores of South Sudanese were celebrating with traditional tribal dances on a dirt field. A bull had been slaughtered, and men were staking its stretched-out skin to the ground so it could be dried and fashioned into a drum-top in time for celebrations on Monday, a national holiday.
> 
> South Sudan, which voted overwhelmingly in January to secede from the north, is one of the world's most troubled places, with widespread illiteracy, chronic hunger, meager infrastructure, numerous internal rebellions and a host of unresolved disputes with the regime in Khartoum.
> 
> The capital saw a frenzy of road-building and construction in the run-up to Saturday's celebrations, but hotels and restaurants don't take credit cards, and the streets lack lights. At night, the headlights of cars and motorbikes swim through the saturating smoke of surrounding trash fires.
> 
> Taban lo Liyong, a South Sudanese writer and literature professor at the University of Juba, said that with independence it was no longer possible to blame the north for the south's woes. "From today on, the blame game is off," he said. "Nobody can use the Arabs as a boogeyman."
> 
> Liyong would like to see Kiir live up to his public pronouncements about crushing corruption, which many consider pervasive.
> 
> "The first problem he's going to face is his tribesmen," Liyong said of the new president, whose large Dinka ethnic group dominates the government. "A lot of people are excluded from power. Meritocracy has not taken place."
> 
> Liyong stood in the VIP section at the independence ceremony Saturday and watched those wounded in war, some of them missing limbs, go by along with the widows and orphans. He said he wanted to weep but was overcome by anger at the politicians around him, wondering whether they were there to build a working nation or to make themselves rich.
> 
> Like many in South Sudan, Liyong credited the United States, and President George W. Bush in particular, with pushing north and south toward the 2005 peace agreement that ended generations of civil war and paved the way for partition. But his concerns now have turned to future aid.
> 
> "It was George Bush and the Christian fundamentalists who heard the cry of South Sudan," he said. "Today is Barack Obama's day. We don't know what he is going to do."



South Sudan: Independent South Sudan ready for real test - latimes.com


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan, Libya, and the Two-State Solution








> On Saturday, July 9, a historic happening occurred, an event that caused the entire world to stop for a moment and celebrate the perseverance of worldwide democracy: a new nation was born. South Sudan, the newest member of the worldwide community, was created out of the ashes of one of the most tumultuous regions in the world, Sudan. Plagued by genocide, decades of brutal civil war, and a lack of a government interested in preserving the liberties of the people, the people of South Sudan will have a chance to pursue peace, democracy, and opportunity in a land in which such ideas had not existed for many years.
> 
> Indeed, Saturday's declaration was met with approval and elation by all parties involved. Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan, issued this statement: "I have come here today to share with you your jubilation and festive on this occasion, not because we have turned away from Unity...because of deep-rooted conviction that unity cannot be realized through war and that the will of Southern Sudanese people must be respected..."
> 
> "...we thought that it would be better for Southern Sudanese to achieve their aspiration in separation from a united Sudanese entity and establish their own state according to the official government announcement issued in Khartoum yesterday according to which we recognized the new Republic of South Sudan as an independent state despite our belief that unity of Sudan would have been the better option and more viable and beneficial to our people in the South and the North."
> 
> The content of Mr. al-Bashir's speech demonstrated the belief held among many that in cases such as that of Sudan, peaceful independence of certain regions is a better long-term solution than unity in a large, diverse state. The implementation of a two state solution will certainly improve the lives of citizens of Sudan and South Sudan; now, the governments of both states will be able to focus on controlling a smaller, less diverse and multi-ethnic sphere, thus being able to provide more support to the people.




Read more: South Sudan, Libya, and the Two-State Solution - Technorati Politics


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan Joins UN As 193rd Member 








> UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations has a new member  South Sudan.
> 
> The African nation, which gained independence Saturday, became the U.N.'s 193rd member by acclamation Thursday.
> 
> General Assembly President Joseph Deiss banged a gavel signifying South Sudan's admission to the world body as diplomats burst into applause.
> 
> The country's independence was the climax of a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war with the Arab-dominated north and called for a referendum in which South Sudan voted overwhelmingly for secession.
> 
> After the vote, the flag of South Sudan was raised outside U.N. headquarters to more applause.



South Sudan Joins UN As 193rd Member


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan will have relations with Israel-official








> CAIRO, July 15 (Reuters) - South Sudan, already recognised by Israel, will forge relations with the Jewish state and hopes to help bring peace to the Middle East, the new state's vice president said in remarks received on Friday.
> 
> Riek Machar, speaking to Alhurra television after the UN General Assembly in New York admitted South Sudan to the United Nations on Thursday, said that most of his country's neighbours had diplomatic relations with Israel.
> 
> "Therefore we will have relations with all the Arab and Muslim countries and even with Israel..." Machar said in Arabic, according to a transcript in English sent to Reuters on Friday.
> 
> "As a matter of fact, we look forward to playing a role in solving the existing issues in the Arab world, even the issues between Israel and the Arab countries."
> 
> "We fully understand the issues in the Arab world, particularly the Palestinian issue and the right to have a Palestinian state," he added.
> 
> South Sudan, most of whose people follow Christian and traditional African beliefs, became independent on Saturday in line with a January referendum that was the culmination of a 2005 peace deal ending decades of civil war with the north.
> 
> Israel recognised South Sudan on Sunday, offering the new state economic help after it seceded from the mainly Arab and Muslim north -- which has no relations with the Jewish state.
> 
> Machar said Israel's recognition of South Sudan followed Juba's recognition by Arab countries including north Sudan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
> 
> "We need international peace. We will have relations with all Arab countries. Israel initiated relations with us. This is not a strange development," he added.



South Sudan will have relations with Israel-official | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan Rejects Dual Citizenship for South Sudanese




> Sudan's ruling party has affirmed the government will not grant dual citizenship to people of South Sudan, after the new country said it will allow dual nationality.
> 
> Citizenship is a key unresolved issue between the neighboring countries, which separated when South Sudan declared independence on July 9.
> 
> A spokesman for Sudan's National Congress Party, Ibrahim Ghandur, said the government will not extend dual nationality to South Sudanese because southerners voted overwhelmingly to split from the north.
> 
> Ghandur also said that if South Sudanese were granted dual citizenship, millions of southerners would remain in the north, leaving South Sudan's ruling party in charge of vast natural resources and a much smaller population.
> 
> Many southern Sudanese fled to the north during a 21-year civil war that ravaged much of the south.
> 
> The neighboring countries are still working to resolve other critical issues including oil revenue-sharing, border disputes and the future of the contested Abyei region.
> 
> Separately, South Sudan began began rolling out its new currency on Monday.
> 
> Sudan's central bank says it will start circulating its own new currency later this month.



Sudan Rejects Dual Citizenship for South Sudanese | Africa | English


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan ships first oil



> South Sudan has made its first shipment of oil as an independent country, despite failing to agree how to divide critical spoils with its erstwhile partner to the north.
> 
> Sudan split in two on July 9, following a landslide referendum of southerners who voted for separation from the Arab-led north.
> 
> We have already started shipping  we shipped 1m barrels today, Arkangelo Okwang, director general for energy in South Sudan, told the Financial Times.
> 
> The sale highlights a failure to agree details of Sudans messy divorce, which threatens to return the former warring sides to violence.
> 
> Under a 2005 peace deal that halted decades of fighting, both sides split the revenues from oil produced in the south but exported via northern infrastructure, including pipelines, a refinery and export terminal.
> 
> The south produces about 375,000 bpd, which provides 98 percent of its budget, and says the revenue-sharing agreement must end now it is a sovereign territory.
> 
> We are still negotiating...nothing is yet clear, said Mr Okwang, who said he expects the north to bill the south for the use of its facilities, and added that South Sudan would ship a further 600,000 barrels on July 23, but declined to reveal the sale price.
> 
> Mr Okwang said that both shipments were of low-quality Dar blend from Blocks 3 and 7, which abut the border with the north, and were bought by Chinaoil. The shareholders in the block are the China National Petroleum Company, with 41 percent, and Malaysias Petronas with 40 percent.
> 
> In Khartoum, Omar al-Bashir, the president, has threatened to close the pipeline if the south refuses to share revenues and pay transit fees, arguing that if the 2005 arrangement changes Sudan will have lost $15bn by 2015, although the IMF estimates that Khartoum will instead lose about $5bn.
> 
> Lead negotiator for South Sudan, Pagan Amum, told the FT he viewed Mr al-Bashirs comments as an empty threat and said the north had asked for unfair and unreasonable conditions of passage.
> 
> They came with crazy ideas saying they are going to impose several transit fees  a usage fee, something called a normal transit fee, then something called a special fee  maybe $15 per barrel, even more  then maybe other charges, and they wanted revenue-sharing to continue, said Mr Amum.
> 
> Mr Amum said the south was instead prepared to offer $3bn in assistance to the north and offered transit fees in line with international norms, citing 41 cents per barrel charged by the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, which is a similar-length. Despite receiving offers to build a pipeline to neighbours Ethiopia, Kenya or Uganda, Mr Amum said he hoped that negotiations with the north would be successful.



South Sudan ships first oil - FT.com


----------



## High_Gravity

Resolve dispute between Juba, Khartoum quickly



> Unless the ongoing dispute between South Sudan leaders and the oil trading giant Glencore is resolved we could be witnessing a wrong start for Africas newest nation. Southern Sudan will only flourish if it handles its oil wealth wisely and cautiously handles its dealings with some of the industry giants who want a stake in the oil revenue.
> 
> Already, Juba is facing a separate row with North Sudan over the split of revenues from the oil wealth and how much it is supposed to pay. If these two dynamics halt the pumping of oil from the south to the northern port, we could witness a near collapse of the southern economy or a false start for the new government.
> 
> These two are weighty matters that will require the intervention of leaders of IGAD countries more so because they touch on the security of the new nation and the region. An oil row could trigger a dispute that could jeopardise the economic development of the entire region.
> 
> Of course Khartoum is bitter for having lost 75 per cent of its 500,000 barrels-a-day oil production after the south became independent. But it should not embark on a silent economic sabotage by increasing the amount charged on oil flowing in its pipelines. That should not be allowed.



Business Daily:  - Opinion & Analysis |Resolve dispute between Juba, Khartoum quickly


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan: UN peacekeepers killed by Abyei landmine blast








> Four Ethiopian UN peacekeeping troops have been killed by a landmine in Sudan's disputed region of Abyei.
> 
> A UN spokesman said seven other peacekeepers were injured by the blast in Mabok, south-east of Abyei town, which was occupied by northern forces.
> 
> UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was "saddened" by the deaths, he added.
> 
> The deaths come less than a week after the 4,200-strong Ethiopian peacekeeping force arrived in Abyei, claimed by the governments of Sudan and South Sudan.
> 
> UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said Mr Ban had expressed his condolences to the Ethiopian government, and the family and friends of those killed.
> 
> The injured have been airlifted to Kadugli, in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan.
> 
> The village where the landmine exploded had been occupied by troops loyal to the government in Khartoum, which has signed the Ottawa Treaty banning the use of anti-personnel mines.
> 
> Northern forces had occupied Abyei in May, raising fears of a renewal of Sudan's 21-year, north-south conflict.
> 
> After the offensive, more than 100,000 people fled the territory, mainly to South Sudan, which gained independence on 9 July.
> 
> But in June, both north and south agreed to withdraw their troops from Abyei, leaving a 20km (12-mile) buffer zone along the border.
> 
> A week later, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to send a 4,200-strong Ethiopian peacekeeping force to Abyei to monitor the withdrawal, as well as human rights.
> 
> The resolution established a new UN peacekeeping force, the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (Unisfa).
> 
> It also ordered Unisfa to protect civilians and to "protect the Abyei area from incursions by unauthorised elements".
> 
> Sudan's permanent representative to the UN, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, said northern forces would withdraw as soon as the Ethiopian troops had been deployed.



BBC News - Sudan: UN peacekeepers killed by Abyei landmine blast


----------



## High_Gravity

Sheboygan native aids in birth of new nation, South Sudan








> Inside a Sheboygan coffee shop, Michael Eddy is on his laptop computer sorting through the tens of thousands of photos he took in the past year while helping establish the world's newest nation &#8212; South Sudan.
> 
> In one, Eddy, a Sheboygan native and foreign service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, stands arm in arm with Sudanese people waving flags during the country's independence celebration last month in the capital of Juba.
> 
> He then quickly flips through a series of photos where he's seen with a number of high-profile dignitaries, including Sen. John Kerry, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and former President Jimmy Carter, before stopping at the photo he's been looking for.
> 
> In it, a Sudanese woman has burst into tears following the country's historic January independence vote that few thought was possible during a half-century of civil war and oppression that left more than 2 million dead.
> 
> "It was a moment of release. They all broke down," Eddy said, pointing at the photo. "I'm already rationalizing to myself to get used to the fact you might never experience this kind of emotion again."
> 
> For Eddy, 43, who's spent the past week visiting family in Sheboygan, it's hard to convey all he's seen and done in the past year, easily among the most rewarding in his 12 years in international development work for USAID, a federal agency that provides economic and humanitarian assistance around the globe.
> 
> Starting in July 2010, the North High School graduate was assigned to Sudan and put in charge of coordinating a historic election that would cap South Sudan's successful push toward independence, which was made possible by a 2005 peace deal between war-torn Sudan's north and south.
> 
> Working with a more than $75 million budget, the USAID team &#8212; led by Eddy &#8212; got more than 4 million people registered to vote and established more than 2,600 polling centers.
> 
> The accomplishment was no small feat given the country's dispersed, migratory population, of which about 85 percent can't read or write.
> 
> 
> The work required long days with little time to rest. At one point Eddy worked 105 straight days, including Christmas and New Years.
> 
> It was also dangerous, including the time a airplane he was traveling in landed and was surrounded and held for several hours at gunpoint.
> 
> But the payoff came on Jan. 9, when South Sudanese residents overwhelmingly voting in favor of independence. South Sudan officially became its own country July 9, breaking Africa's largest country into two.
> 
> Eddy's photos show one rural polling station during the January vote consisting of a plastic folding table that poll workers had walked several days to set up beneath a tree.
> 
> "That's what overwhelmed me, how important this was. It was everything for them," Eddy said.
> 
> Eddy first became interested in international work after studying abroad while attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He later completed his master's degree in international affairs at American University in Washington, D.C., and held several positions, including with the World Bank, before joining USAID.
> 
> Following the January election in South Sudan, Eddy has helped run a variety of programs providing technical assistance to the fledgling nation as leaders there set up laws, a constitution and civil programs.
> 
> He's also gave the thousands of photos he took in the past year to the people of South Sudan, as he was often the only non-media member there photographing historic moments, such as a photo he has of South Sudan President Salva Kiir casting his vote in the January referendum.
> 
> Going forward, Eddy said the country still faces its share of challenges, as it's one of the poorest and least-developed places in the world. There are also unresolved problems between the south and its former foe in the north, and there are tensions between the country's 170 different ethnicities.
> 
> But Eddy, who previously oversaw development work for the U.S. government in Macedonia, Bolivia and Nicaragua, said that South Sudan has already come a long way.
> 
> 
> "For the region and for the world, it is in the U.S. people's interest that there be stability there, that there be a democratic representative government that listens to their people," Eddy said.
> 
> Throughout his travels, and no matter how remote his assignment, Eddy is periodically reminded of home.
> 
> Sometimes it's in the most unlikely of ways, such as the Fourth of July party he attended in Juba this year, where they served Johnsonville brats.
> 
> "It was a miracle," he said. "Sheboygan brats served in South Sudan. It was a big deal."
> 
> Eddy returned to the United States just two weeks after South Sudan's July independence celebration, traveling to Sheboygan to see his parents with his wife, Sharane, and two children, Isaac and India, ages 8 and 6.
> 
> It's a trip he makes once a year, and as always it's been an adjustment returning to American culture after being so immersed in the developing world.
> 
> "I'll be at the grocery store and go into the cereal aisle and be stuck for a while," Eddy said. "Your head can't comprehend there's this many choices of cereal. It's reverse culture shock back to what it's like to live here."
> 
> Eddy is scheduled to leave Sheboygan today.
> 
> His work in Sudan complete, he'll soon begin a four-year assignment in Thailand, doing regional development work. He'll be joined there by his wife and kids, who spent the past year living in Washington, D.C.
> 
> While visiting Sheboygan, he was scheduled to attend his 25th high school class reunion, the first he's attended since graduating from North High School in 1986.
> 
> He conceded there was really no short answer in updating his classmates on what he's been up to.
> 
> "That's my predicament," he said. "There's no short answer. I can only give the 30,000-feet version."



Sheboygan native aids in birth of new nation, South Sudan | Sheboygan Press | sheboyganpress.com


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan's SSLA Unity State rebels 'cease fire'








> The biggest rebel movement in the newly independent South Sudan has declared a ceasefire, its spokesman says.
> 
> The South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA) has been involved in clashes with the new nation's army this year.
> 
> Its fighters are concentrated in Unity State, near many of South Sudan's lucrative oil fields.
> 
> When South Sudan split from Khartoum last month, its President Salva Kiir offered an amnesty to various militias fighting in the south.
> 
> South Sudan's army spokesman told the BBC he had not heard about a ceasefire, but confirmed there had been "behind doors" contacts between the government and the SSLA.
> 
> South Sudan's independence from Sudan was the outcome of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of conflict between north and south in which some 1.5 million people died.
> 
> The BBC's James Copnall in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, says insecurity is one of the greatest challenges facing the new state of South Sudan.
> 
> *Ethnic tensions*
> 
> The SSLA, led by a dissident general Peter Gadet, is the most significant militarily of the half dozen or so southern rebel groups, our reporter says.
> 
> His fighters took up arms earlier this year in protest against corruption, mismanagement of oil revenues and what they believe is the domination of the Dinka ethnic group.
> 
> Most of the SSLA are from the Nuer ethnic group, the second biggest in South Sudan.
> 
> "We are declaring a ceasefire and we are also accepting the amnesty offered by the president as the basis of talks with the government of South Sudan," SSLA spokesman Bol Gatkouth Kol told the AFP news agency.
> 
> The group's intention was to integrate its soldiers into the southern army, he said.
> 
> He told the BBC he was in South Sudan's capital, Juba, as the head of an SSLA delegation for further talks.
> 
> If the ceasefire is confirmed and then holds, it will be a major step forward for South Sudan's stability, our reporter says.



BBC News - South Sudan&#039;s SSLA Unity State rebels &#039;cease fire&#039;


----------



## Ropey

High_Gravity said:


> South Sudan's SSLA Unity State rebels 'cease fire'
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The biggest rebel movement in the newly independent South Sudan has declared a ceasefire, its spokesman says.
> 
> The South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA) has been involved in clashes with the new nation's army this year.
> 
> Its fighters are concentrated in Unity State, near many of South Sudan's lucrative oil fields.
> 
> When South Sudan split from Khartoum last month, its President Salva Kiir offered an amnesty to various militias fighting in the south.
> 
> South Sudan's army spokesman told the BBC he had not heard about a ceasefire, but confirmed there had been "behind doors" contacts between the government and the SSLA.
> 
> South Sudan's independence from Sudan was the outcome of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of conflict between north and south in which some 1.5 million people died.
> 
> The BBC's James Copnall in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, says insecurity is one of the greatest challenges facing the new state of South Sudan.
> 
> *Ethnic tensions*
> 
> The SSLA, led by a dissident general Peter Gadet, is the most significant militarily of the half dozen or so southern rebel groups, our reporter says.
> 
> His fighters took up arms earlier this year in protest against corruption, mismanagement of oil revenues and what they believe is the domination of the Dinka ethnic group.
> 
> Most of the SSLA are from the Nuer ethnic group, the second biggest in South Sudan.
> 
> "We are declaring a ceasefire and we are also accepting the amnesty offered by the president as the basis of talks with the government of South Sudan," SSLA spokesman Bol Gatkouth Kol told the AFP news agency.
> 
> The group's intention was to integrate its soldiers into the southern army, he said.
> 
> He told the BBC he was in South Sudan's capital, Juba, as the head of an SSLA delegation for further talks.
> 
> If the ceasefire is confirmed and then holds, it will be a major step forward for South Sudan's stability, our reporter says.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> BBC News - South Sudan's SSLA Unity State rebels 'cease fire'
Click to expand...


This is a case where amnesty and integration is the path.  An enlightening post HG.


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan Officials: 125 Killed In Cattle Raid 








> JUBA, South Sudan  More than 185 people have been killed in South Sudan in a recent cattle raid and an unrelated militia attack, officials said Sunday.
> 
> The incidents underscore the challenges and insecurity faced by South Sudan, which became the world's newest country when it declared independence in July.
> 
> South Sudan army spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said fighters loyal to rebel leader George Athor crossed the border from north Sudan and attacked a town in South Sudan's Upper Nile state. Aguer said the violence which started Friday left 60 people dead, including seven soldiers and 53 militia members. He said the soldiers managed to repel the attackers.
> 
> Separately, South Sudanese officials said Sunday 125 people were killed in a cattle raid during which tribesmen stole 2,000 cattle in the country's east. Jonglei state Governor Kuol Manyang Juuk said eight villages were destroyed when warriors from the Murle tribe in Pidor county attacked the Lou-Nuer tribe of Uror county on Thursday.
> 
> Justice Minister John Luk Jok said he saw bodies strewn across the scene of the raid and that some children's limbs had been amputated.
> 
> The two tribes frequently clash over land and cattle. In May, nearly 70 people were killed in a weeklong cattle-related conflict between the two rival tribes.



South Sudan Officials: 125 Killed In Cattle Raid


----------



## High_Gravity

The State of South Sudan and NATO








> The magazine, Global Public Square, and the Times of London have recently published statements by US former envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, in which he called on US government and European governments to create a long strategic alliance with the State of South Sudan.
> In addition, Natsios called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to include South Sudan in the NATO's security system through entering into a security guarantee agreement with it whereby South Sudan would be included in the NATO's mandate and hence any aggression on South Sudan would be considered an aggression on all NATO system.
> However, many observers consider attempts by some powers to intimidate some regional parties by making them believe that the Government of north Sudan has evil plans against its neighbors aim at creating regional tensions, a situation that justifies Western intervention.
> These fears of north Sudan intentions had increased in the months that preceded the conduction of the referendum on self-determination of South Sudan with western circles claiming that the Sudanese government was adamant to abort the referendum process to prevent the South from attaining its independence and announcing its state.
> Such plans and intimidations were clearly manifested in the reports of nongovernmental organizations that closely monitors the situation in Sudan, in the reports that have been regularly prepared by the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and in strategic studies centers reports; we should not forget the international conference on Sudan that was held last September at UN headquarters in New York.
> All these fora have focused on fears that north and south Sudan would slip into war and violence assuming that the Government of north Sudan may not be pleased with the secession of South Sudan and the difficulties it would face following the loss of 75 percent of the country's oil.
> However, all such expectations have proved to be baseless since they have been founded on wrong information and assumptions: the referendum process had gone on smoothly and without any problems, with 98 percent of Southern Sudanese voting for secession.
> Following the announcement of the new Southern state on July 9, the same circles have begun again to warn against the risk of the eruption of war between the two neighboring states because of the many pending issues and differences between them, particularly Abyei region.
> When the Sudanese Armed Forces found itself forced to control Abyei region in reply to SPLA's repeated violations and aggression, these hostile circles have started again to warn against the danger of the eruption of war and found the legitimate move of Sudanese Armed Forces to defend itself an evidence of Khartoum's bad intentions.
> These same circles use the difficulties being faced in arriving at a final solution to the Abyei questions as a pretext for intimidation and planting differences between the two states in the north and the south in additional to regional parties.
> 
> *Strategic Burden*
> 
> Whether Natsios meant that South Sudan should be allowed to join NATO or that his statement was mere invitation for a protection agreement within a strategic perspective, any of the options would form a strategic burden for the alliance. As we know, NATO has been facing lately unending crises that have imposed on the alliance unprecedented challenges and hence have forced it to reconsider its options and capabilities continuously.
> The State of South Sudan, no matter how much Natsios' doting in its unlimited wealth, would not be better than other Greater Lakes countries whose natural resources, mineral and precious metals wealth have turned from a blessing to a curse, with these countries slipping into unending civil wars.
> With the passage of time, these wars turned into regional ones and into war-by proxy when certain countries and what is commonly known as Resources Stealing Networks, interfered in these conflicts as active elements.
> On this, we quote Natsios who said, "International companies are racing for developing the huge south Sudan resources: rich soil, plenty irrigation water, vast and open fertile lands, plenty mineral resources, including valuable but depleting metals , such as gold, copper , diamond and coltan in addition to 75 percent of both north and south Sudan oil reserves.
> According to experience, the inflow of capital and international companies are considered an element of corruption of the political class in many countries, particularly those newly born and fragile ones that are being ruled by former rebels who are not used to running a government.
> Indeed, media reports published last July tell us that  Norwegian Peoples Aid Society (NPAS), a non-profit Norwegian society, has revealed that some foreign governments, individuals, and companies have concluded deals with influential figures at Government of the State of South Sudan (GoSS) under which GoSS agreed to lease to them the most fertile lands in South Sudan for subsequent investment in the form of agricultural projects and bio-fuel production plants and the growing of vast areas of  forests on an area estimated at 2.6 m hectares
> In commenting on these reports, NPAS said that the figures are "shocking since the areas of some of these projects are tremendous and that "in addition, South Sudan is considered as one of the high-risk counties in terms of security".
> Ironically, a new report released by Maplecroft, an international firm that is concerned with risks analysis has said under its terrorism risk index analysis has said the South Sudan, though it is the newest country in the world, occupies No 5 position in the list of the top countries that are most prone to terrorist attack.



Sudan Vision Daily - Details


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan seeks to open up for foreign investors 



> South Sudan is organising a series of international trade shows as it seeks to open up the country for foreign investors.The country plans to hold trade fairs in Brazil, India and China by the end of the year. However, the first fair is scheduled for early next month at the Nyakuron Cultural Centre in Juba.
> 
> The countrys Ministry of Commerce and Industry is in charge of the promotion.Delegates from East Africa would be required to pay $2,500 for a package that includes visa and airport tax, return flight, accommodation in Juba, transport to and from the conference venue and the participation fee. South Sudan requires heavy investment in infrastructure such as road, housing, education, health and other social amenities to spur economic growth.
> 
> Investment analysts have urged Kenyans to take part in these conferences since they will not only serve as networking forums but help them identify viable business opportunities and investment procedures in the country, which is a fast-emerging market.
> 
> Given the underdevelopment present in the country the government is keen on acquiring capital to deliver the various services necessary for it to get on its feet, Mr Eric Musau, an analysts with Standard Investment Bank said. Foreign investment will be key in achieving this.
> 
> With a population of about 12 million, the landlocked country relies on local industry to cater to its consumer goods demand, presenting a huge potential for foreign investors.
> 
> Several Kenyan companies such as Equity Bank, Kenya Airways and Kenya Commercial Bank have established their subsidiaries in South Sudan with many others expressing their interest to invest in different sectors of the economy.
> 
> The latest entrant is Family Bank, which has announced plans to finalise an acquisition deal by June next year as it catches up with other Kenyan banks, which have set up base in the country. The buy-out will help us gain acceptance in the market and cut short the investment lead time, said Peter Munyiri, the CEO of Family Bank.
> 
> Banks are rushing to open shop in South Sudan, which is fast morphing into a fertile ground for both local and international companies after its break from the North and subsequent declaration of independence on July 9.



South Sudan seeks to open up for foreign investors


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan slams Hamas PMs remark, demands apology








> October 6, 2011 (KHARTOUM)  The Republic of South Sudan has strongly censured remarks in which Ismail Haniya, Prime Minister of the ousted Hamass government in Gaza strip, reportedly described the newly independent country as a foundling state.
> 
> 
> Prime Minister of Hamas government (ImageShack&#174; - Online Photo and Video Hosting) According to a report published by the daily Sudanese newspaper Al-Ahdath last week, Haniya was delivering a Friday prayer sermon on 30 October when he described South Sudan as a foundling state as he strongly advocated the view that Palestinians should seek to establish their state through armed struggle not at the UN General Assembly.
> 
> We have not heard in history that states were established through international resolutions, even this foundling state in South Sudan, which was severed from Sudans main homeland, did not come to exist through a UN resolution but rather through fighting and agreements, he was quoted.
> 
> Haniya further said that establishing a Palestinian state with its capital Jerusalem is the goal of all Palestinian people, stressing that it is not acceptable that a Palestinian state be established in exchange for ceding a span of the hand of Palestinian territories.
> 
> We support the establishment of a Palestinian state on liberated territories but without recognizing the [Israeli] occupation, he added.
> 
> Reacting to his statement, the government of South Sudan expressed regret and denunciation over Haniyas remarks.
> 
> The head of South Sudans diplomatic mission in Egypt, Farmina Makueit, described Haniyas statement as irresponsible and called on him to apologize to South Sudanese people.
> 
> Haniya deliberately involved South Sudan in the conflict between Hamas and [its rival] Fatah [Palestinian Liberation Organization], the southern official said.
> 
> Since it gained full independence from Sudan in July this year, South Sudan vowed to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel and reportedly announced intention open an embassy in Jerusalem.



South Sudan slams Hamas PM


----------



## kola_yusuf

The situation in South Sudan bears a lot of watching. The hostilities in that part of the world bear a lot of watching.


----------



## High_Gravity

The Great, Slow Road of Juba: South Sudan's Crucial Artery









> If you've never thought much about pavement, take a drive from Juba to Nimule. Parts of South Sudan's busiest road have been paved, but the unfinished parts are still teeth-rattling stretches of pitted, rust-colored dirt. On a dry day, each passing truck leaves a impenetrable dust cloud in its wake; after a rain, pocks in the earth degenerate into red lagoons. The trucks whose tires don't sink into the mud veer wildly to dodge the lakes, sending lesser vehicles scattering. When you finally bounce back onto the pavement, it is so mercifully uneventful that you swear you will never take it for granted again, and before you can make any more promises you won't keep, cathunk! You're back on the dirt, splayed across the backseat like a starfish, bracing against windows and seats with all available limbs.
> 
> When it's done, the Juba-Nimule road will be the longest paved road  and by far the biggest infrastructure project  in the Republic of South Sudan, the world's youngest nation. USAID, a major donor to the three-month old country, is paying for and overseeing the work on the 192-kilometer route and the eight bridges along the way. Work began in 2008, and it's total price-tag of $220 million is $61 million over original projections. Some have questioned why only a third of the road is finished after three years; others wonder whether those millions of dollars were best spent so near the capital, instead of a more isolated area.
> 
> Few, however, would argue that the job shouldn't get done. In a country the size of France, there are less than 110 km (68 miles) of paved roads. Most of the nation's limited road network is comprised of dirt routes in various stages of disrepair. Money for infrastructure did not flow generously to the south from Khartoum, a chronic neglect that was one of many factors fueling the nation's decades of civil war. "Even before the ravages of war could set in, our country never had anything worth rebuilding," President Salva Kiir said before the United Nations last month. Now that he and his ministers are in charge, they face the enormous task of creating a road system nearly from scratch. In August, local media reported that the government aims to pave over 4,300 miles of roads  a feat they estimate could cost nearly $7 billion.
> 
> It's hard to imagine a weeks-old administration  for which everything is a priority  tackling that so soon. The logistics of building a road in a war-torn nation are daunting. Landmines plague many parts of the countryside and have to be cleared before grading can begin. Because South Sudan is landlocked, almost everything  from skilled engineers to bulldozers  has to be imported over land, a process that itself can get slowed down when, say, pirates off the coast of Africa hold up shipments. With the widespread prevalence of illegal guns, security has to be provided for road crews. On the Juba-Nimule road, USAID expects to spent $10 million alone on security and $8 million de-mining the road. Workers are still finding mines as the job continues.
> 
> Still, the young government needs to aim high. Without better roads, it won't be able to tackle some of its biggest problems. Despite its ample fertile land, South Sudan has extremely little commercial agriculture, in large part because there is, in most cases, no way to get farmers' produce to market. The nation has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world; more roads would enable more women to get to hospitals before, during or after a complicated childbirth. They could also help rein in the violence that regularly erupts in remote areas of the country. When fighting breaks out between tribes, as it did this August when over 600 people were killed in Jonglei state, troops can't always get to the site of conflict to diffuse the situation. "You put a road in place and it opens up a lot of things." says Kevin Mullally, mission director for USAID in South Sudan. "It opens opportunities... but if it's not well thought-out, it could also destroy certain opportunities."



Read more: The Great, Slow Road of Juba: South Sudan's Crucial Artery - TIME


----------



## Tank

The modern world is not natural with the African people


----------



## High_Gravity

Tank said:


> The modern world is not natural with the African people



What does that even mean?


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan Says Black Market Currency Trading Fuels Inflation



> Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Central Bank workers in South Sudan may be involved in black market currency trading that is fueling inflation in the newly independent nation, the deputy finance minister said.
> 
> The employees are able to buy dollars at the official rate of between 2.9 to 3.3 pounds to the dollar and sell them on the black market, where the U.S. currency fetches as much as 4 pounds, Marial Awou Yol said yesterday in an interview in Juba, the capital. Ministry of National Security agents are probing all businesses that can trade in foreign currency, including banks, insurance companies and exchange bureaus, he said.
> 
> We have ordered them to be positioned, or embedded, into mainly the central bank, because it looks like there is connivance between some staff of the central bank and these mobile bureau exchange owners operating on the street, he said.
> 
> Consumer prices jumped 61.5 percent in September from last year as the cost of food surged, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Oct. 18. South Sudan gained control of about 75 percent of Sudans oil production, the third biggest in sub- Saharan Africa, when it seceded on July 9.
> 
> Police in Juba said last week they detained more than 20 people who were exchanging money illegally on the streets.
> 
> Yol said the government hoped that further investigations would lead authorities to the invisible guys who are profiting from illegal currency speculation.
> 
> *Food Prices Soar*
> 
> The price of food, the largest contributor to the inflation index with a 71.4 percent weighting, advanced an annual 65.3 percent in September, the Juba-based statistics bureau said in a statement on its website.
> 
> The central bank this month said it was doubling to $200 million the weekly amount of foreign currency allocated to financial institutions.
> 
> Yol said such measures would only be effective if security agencies are able to prevent illegal speculators from profiting on the black market.



South Sudan Says Black Market Currency Trading Fuels Inflation - Businessweek


----------



## High_Gravity

Sending U.S. Troops to Africa May Help South Sudan



> (CNSNews.com)  President Obamas decision to send 100 combat-ready troops to central Africa aims to help rid Uganda of a 20 year-old rebel scourge but could also benefit South Sudan by eliminating at least one of the most troubling security challenges facing the fledgling republic.
> 
> Last year alone, attacks by the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) displaced some 25,000 southern Sudanese, according to the United Nations.
> 
> The groups activities in that area, where it has been killing, raping and abducting civilians for the past six years, has especially affected the southwestern corner of the worlds newest country, its most fertile and potentially productive region.
> 
> Although viewed primarily as a Ugandan group, the LRAs deadly activities have affected security far beyond its original turf in the north of that country, operating in southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic.
> 
> Obama informed House Speaker John Boehner in a letter Friday that he had authorized the deployment of about 100 troops to advise regional armies in the fight against the LRA and its leader, Joseph Kony.
> 
> Obama said that the U.S. has supported regional military efforts against the LRA since 2008. He cited legislation he signed into law last year in which Congress expressed support for increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability.
> 
> In furtherance of the Congresss stated policy, I have authorized a small number of combat equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield, the president wrote.
> 
> Splintered units of the Lords Resistance Army are reported to be located in northern Uganda, the south-western corner of South Sudan, as well as in areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic. (Map: CIA World Factbook)
> The Lords Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which received significant bipartisan support, calls for the provision of political, economic, military, and intelligence support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from the Lords Resistance Army, to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield in the continued absence of a negotiated solution, and to disarm and demobilize the remaining Lords Resistance Army fighters.
> 
> Formed in the late 1980s in northern Uganda, the LRA soon became notorious for atrocities including the mutilation and murder of civilians and the abduction of children forced to serve as soldiers or sex slaves. Once estimated to have up to 3,000 fighters, researchers believe its ranks today to be 200- or 300-strong at most.
> 
> If you ever had any question if there was evil in this world, its resident in the person of Joseph Kony and in that organization, U.S. Africa Command commander Gen. Carter Ham told a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum in Washington earlier this month.
> 
> Notwithstanding its name and occasional invoking of the Ten Commandments, the LRA is less accurately described as a Christian organization than as a brutal cult led by a conceivably psychotic killer who claims to be possessed by spirits.
> 
> Its only known state sponsor has not been a Christian entity, but President Omar al-Bashirs Islamist regime in Khartoum. Bashir began supporting the LRA in the mid-1990s in response to the Ugandan governments backing for his arch foe in Sudans long and costly civil war, the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA).



Sending U.S. Troops to Africa May Help South Sudan | CNSnews.com


----------



## High_Gravity

The slow boats to South Sudan








> John Latuma is one of the tens of thousands of South Sudanese stranded in Sudan as they try to make their way home to their newly independent country.
> 
> He is stuck in a makeshift camp in Kosti, a port on Sudan's White Nile hoping to get a barge nearly 1,450km (900 miles) down the river, through the swamps and over the border to Juba, South Sudan's capital.
> 
> "People are stagnant here - no food, no treatment, no drugs - the situation is very bad," he says.
> 
> South Sudan seceded from the north in July, and over the last year more than 340,000 of its new citizens have made the trip home.
> 
> But the flow of returnees has slowed, due to money shortages, the dangerous journey and a lack of transport.
> 
> Mr Latuma went to Sudan's capital, Khartoum, 20 years ago during the long north-south civil war, like many South Sudanese.
> 
> He has given up his house and job and is now staying in unenviable conditions with some 12,000 other South Sudanese at Kosti, about 300km south of Khartoum, in a way-station designed to hold 1,500 people.
> 
> There are not enough toilets, and there are only two clinics providing health services.
> 
> One man, Yacob, complains there are not enough drugs.
> 
> Although he is on crutches, he insists on hopping through the camp to show me a place he is particularly indignant about, where the shallow pool of slimy water stinks.
> 
> *Children at risk*
> 
> The aid agencies would like to put up more buildings to house the influx, but the Sudanese authorities do not want the camp to become permanent.
> 
> The numbers here have grown because there are not enough barges to transport all the people wishing to leave.
> 
> Barge numbers are limited because there is only one company suitable to transport passengers The journey itself is difficult too: 6,000 people leave at once, and face at least three weeks travelling through the notoriously difficult Sudd swamp before they arrive in Juba.
> 
> But the gap between barges is so great some South Sudanese have been in Kosti for several months.
> 
> "Our children are complaining of a lack of education," says Alex.
> 
> "They now have a lack of knowledge. We are appealing to our government to take us home."
> 
> About 10% of the children in the camp get some education provided by aid groups.
> 
> But their existence, in particular, is a precarious one.
> 
> "There are protection issues around sexual violence for girls," says Rein Dekker, from the War Child charity.
> 
> He goes on to list a many other problems.
> 
> "There are safety issues around the river - we have had cases of drowning and bad sickness too.
> 
> "We find issues around child labour too.
> 
> "There are also kids here who are not connected to any family, they were street children already, and they joined the movement, and they ended up here and have to fend for themselves."
> 
> Now Kosti - designed as a transit point where people would spend the night before taking the barge - has become a semi-permanent camp.
> 
> When South Sudan seceded, it agreed with Sudan that its citizens would have a nine-month period to sort out their status.
> 
> But South Sudanese have already lost their Sudanese nationality, in many cases their jobs, and often struggle to get their pensions.



BBC News - The slow boats to South Sudan


----------



## High_Gravity

Birth Pains of a Nation: South Sudan's Problematic Boom








> When the first limousine in South Sudan arrived earlier this year, it was loaded onto a truck and covered in a giant tarp. "I didn't want to cause any accidents," says Latjor James Mayul, the Juba businessman who ordered the 2003 Lincoln Navigator online from a dealership in the Netherlands. Mayul understood the raw power of luxury in a nation picking itself up from decades of isolation and war. Even today  months after his rental limo has become a fixture at the weddings of the city's highflyers  the opulence of its white leather seats and LED disco lighting is hard to resist, even for Mayul. "See the lights?" he asks. "They're so amazing!"
> 
> Three months into South Sudan's nationhood, the new capital of Juba is still in the grip of postindependence euphoria. Happy citizens in roadside beer advertisements toast each other on the nation's "Fine Achievement." Yellow Humvees and black Range Rovers jockey for space on the pockmarked arteries where white aid vehicles used to reign supreme and skeletons of soon-to-be hotels and high-end apartment complexes sprout between corrugated iron shanties and makeshift tea stands. Even the egalitarian matatu  the inexpensive minibuses that ferry passengers around many African cities  has embraced the aspirational zeal, with slogans like "Time Is Money" emblazoned in stickers across their windshields.
> 
> It's a kind of material optimism that  for those who have access to it  has taken on an almost patriotic hue after years of collective sacrifice. "Our parents went through the hardship of getting us to this point," says Aisha Jore Ali, who recently started the first South Sudanese event- and wedding-management company after she noticed that more couples were getting married in the months leading up to and after independence. "Any occasion that brings happiness is a big deal." Mayul, who says he paid about $90,000 for the used limo through his coterie of other small-business ventures, isn't sure when  or if  he'll make any money on this particular whim. "I don't know how long it will take to get the money back," he admits. "But if people are happy, I feel like I'm doing a good job."
> 
> Juba's golden aura of opportunity has many knocking on its door. On a side street in an NGO-infused neighborhood, Filmon Tsegoy stands in the middle of what he says will soon be the classiest hotel in town. At 24, the Eritrean is in contention to be the youngest hotelier in the city, and he is in good company. "There are Ugandans, Kenyans, Lebanese ... they're from everywhere," says Tsegoy. Indeed, since Khartoum and Juba signed a peace agreement in 2005 ending their vicious war, entrepreneurs and skilled and manual laborers from throughout the region have been helping build a shattered Juba from the ground up. The government has mostly welcomed the foreigners  particularly those like Tsegoy who bring capital with them  to help ease the investment and labor shortage in a country where most people have been too busy avoiding AK-47s to learn skills needed to build up the economy. "I didn't want to live here," Tsegoy says. "But now I like it."
> 
> Not all newcomers give the world's newest nation such rave reviews. On a Saturday morning, a thin crowd of men and a few families mill around the dusty grounds of Juba's Episcopal Church, where the U.N. has set up a few plastic tables to register refugees. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese who have returned home since the end of the war in 2005, people from the northern Sudanese states of Darfur, Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile have been heading to Juba in recent months, fleeing fighting in their hometowns or seeking a better life under a government they feel is, by definition, sympathetic to their grievances with Khartoum. "People chose South Sudan because we have the same land, the same enemies, the same color, the same culture," says Idiris Adam Abraham, who fled Darfur 10 years ago and moved to Egypt. After the South became independent in July, Abraham took his young wife and 5-year-old son to Juba, hoping the family could settle down. "Sometimes [the South Sudanese] are welcoming. Many are understanding," Abraham says. "But they are affected by the war. They've had many bad experiences ... it's like they are paying it back."
> 
> Indeed, for all of Juba's optimism, many worry whether the overloaded government has the ability to look after its own citizens, let alone an influx of refugees and foreign workers. Despite some $10 billion the South has received in oil revenues since the 2005 peace deal, basic services around the country remain scarce. Even in the capital, where poverty rates are less than half that of rural areas, people are slipping through the cracks as officials become increasingly preoccupied with the complications of urbanization. "There are so many threats  money laundering, counterfeiting, drugs. These are new to us," says Lieut. General Salva Mathok Gengdit, the Deputy Interior Minister. The police, many of whom are former soldiers without any formal police training, are ill equipped to contain a growing crime rate spurred on by Juba's rising cost of living and lack of opportunity after decades of war. At a military hospital in town, several soldiers a week are admitted after attempting suicide. "People are under pressure to support their families," says Akim Nyuon Yach, who has to perform dental work on many of the would-be suicide patients after they have tried to shoot themselves under the jaw. "They can't envision their future. Now that war is over, they don't see the purpose of their lives."



Read more: South Sudan Faces Growing Pains Amid Its Economic Boom - TIME


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan, South Sudan Heading For War 








> NAIROBI, Kenya  The presidents of Sudan and the new nation of South Sudan are both predicting the possibility of a new war in an oil-rich region that has seen a spike in cross-border attacks.
> 
> Troop build-ups are being reported on both sides of the Sudan-South Sudan border, the world's newest international boundary, and rebels in Sudan announced a new alliance with the aim of overthrowing their own government, which is seated in the capital, Khartoum.
> 
> The U.S. is pleading for cooler heads to prevail, even as aid workers are withdrawing from the region after two bombing runs into South Sudan by Sudan, its northern neighbor, last week.
> 
> After two long wars that spanned decades, South Sudan formally declared independence from Sudan in July following a successful independence referendum in January that was guaranteed in a 2005 peace deal. The world celebrated the peaceful break-up of Sudan. But big disputes that have long lurked in the background are now festering, and flaring into violence.
> 
> An agreement to split the region's oil revenues was never reached. The borders were never fully demarcated. And perhaps most important, the break-up left two large groups of people in Sudan's south in the lurch, groups that Sudan has labeled rebels and that Khartoum's military has been attacking for months.
> 
> In addition, the Khartoum government is facing a financial crisis due to the loss of oil revenue and rising food prices, said John Prendergast, the co-founder of the U.S.-based Enough Project, which closely monitors Sudan.
> 
> "Each spark heightens the possibility of all-out war, and the sparks are occurring with more frequency now," Prendergast said Monday.
> 
> Sudan President Omar al-Bashir accuses the south of arming what he calls rebels in Sudan. He said this month that if the south wants to return to war, his army is prepared, as he ticked off recent clashes he said the north won.
> 
> "We are ready to teach you another lesson," Bashir said.
> 
> South Sudan President Salva Kiir responded last week, saying al-Bashir's accusation are only to justify "his pending invasion." Kiir said South Sudan is committed to peace but allow its sovereignty to be violated.
> 
> Last week U.S. and other international officials said Sudanese military aircraft twice flew into South Sudan territory and dropped bombs. In the second attack two bombs landed in a refugee camp. There were no casualties.
> 
> The U.S. demanded that Sudan halt aerial bombardments immediately.
> 
> "This is a moment where both sides need to show maximum restraint," said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. "In the first instance, the government of Sudan needs to halt all offensive actions against the south. Immediately. And the south needs to have the wisdom and restraint not to take the bait and not to respond in kind."
> 
> The aid group Oxfam said over the weekend it was pulling out 22 staff members  mainly engineers and health workers  from South Sudan's Upper Nile state after the staff reported a bombing and heavy artillery on Friday. The staff witnessed planes overhead and a build-up of South Sudan troops, Oxfam said.
> 
> "New bombing raids and a build-up of troops along the border of Sudan and South Sudan over the past few days threaten to escalate what is already a significant humanitarian crisis," it said, adding: "Thousands of refugees are still coming across the border ... they have fled attacks and walked for days to reach a place they thought would be safe but instead they are now facing more violence."
> 
> The World Food Program also suspended activities in the Yida refugee camp  home to more than 20,000 refugees  after two bombs from Sudanese aircraft fell in the camp and three outside of it.
> 
> Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, said the attack "put innocent civilians at extreme risk."
> 
> A new Sudan rebel group calling itself the Sudan Revolutionary Front has emerged, adding to the dizzying array of political and military groups involved in an ethnic, economic and territorial conflict between the two countries.
> 
> The Sudan Revolutionary Front says its aim is to overthrow the Sudan's ruling National Congress Party through all means, including violence. The group consists of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, the Justice and Equality Movement, and two factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army.



Sudan, South Sudan Heading For War


----------



## High_Gravity

I have a feeling South Sudan is going to go to war against the Arab government in the North.

Viewpoint: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan








> "We left our homes with not even a cup like this one," recounted the woman from a Sudanese refugee camp in Ethiopia last month, gesturing toward a red plastic cup lying in the dirt next to her foot. Asma, a name we are using for her to help ensure her safety, said Sudanese government Antonov planes bombed her village and government soldiers, supported by ethnic militia, chased and killed civilians. They did not spare children and pregnant women, she said angrily. "It's all because we are black," Asma told our colleagues in the Satellite Sentinel Project. She said that the militias were shouting, "Grab the slaves!" Her subsequent week-long journey with 50 other women to the refugee camp was harrowing. "Many of the women had to leave their babies in their cribs."
> 
> Incredibly, Asma and the tens of thousands of Sudanese who have run for their lives across international borders are the lucky ones. Those left behind in the war zones within Sudan  places like Blue Nile, South Kordofan, Abyei, and Darfur  are subject to a regime whose war tactics break every international law on the books. But two war crimes in particular  aerial bombing against civilians and blocking humanitarian aid  are leading to the biggest killer of all: famine.
> 
> The strategy of using starvation as a weapon or means of social control is one of the oldest and most effective tactics of war. Around 400 B.C., the Spartans ended the Peloponnesian Wars by starving the Greeks into submission in their siege of Athens. Two centuries later, after Rome defeated Hannibal's army, Roman troops ploughed Carthage with salt to render it infertile.
> 
> You'd think by the second decade of 21st century  with the development of international accountability and prevention mechanisms  that the use of starvation would have disappeared from the arsenal of war weapons because it bears too high a cost for the perpetrator. The people of Sudan would beg to differ.
> 
> These war tactics are a backdrop to the renewed threat of war between Sudan in the north and South Sudan, which became independent of the Khartoum regime in July after an internationally supported referendum on self-determination. If that conflict explodes, it would easily become the largest conventional war on the face of the earth. After the extraordinary success of South Sudan's peaceful birth four months ago, the Sudan that was left behind has burned, as the Khartoum regime has lit every dry bush it can find to see what catches fire, an extension of the divide and destroy policy it has successfully pursued to maintain power since a coup in 1989. The U.S. and broader international community should use the cross-border bombing and threat of starvation as a vehicle to reenergize peace and protection efforts.



Read more: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan - TIME


----------



## Ropey

High_Gravity said:


> *I have a feeling South Sudan is going to go to war against the Arab government in the North.*
> 
> Viewpoint: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "We left our homes with not even a cup like this one," recounted the woman from a Sudanese refugee camp in Ethiopia last month, gesturing toward a red plastic cup lying in the dirt next to her foot. Asma, a name we are using for her to help ensure her safety, said Sudanese government Antonov planes bombed her village and government soldiers, supported by ethnic militia, chased and killed civilians. They did not spare children and pregnant women, she said angrily. "It's all because we are black," Asma told our colleagues in the Satellite Sentinel Project. She said that the militias were shouting, "Grab the slaves!" Her subsequent week-long journey with 50 other women to the refugee camp was harrowing. "Many of the women had to leave their babies in their cribs."
> 
> Incredibly, Asma and the tens of thousands of Sudanese who have run for their lives across international borders are the lucky ones. Those left behind in the war zones within Sudan  places like Blue Nile, South Kordofan, Abyei, and Darfur  are subject to a regime whose war tactics break every international law on the books. But two war crimes in particular  aerial bombing against civilians and blocking humanitarian aid  are leading to the biggest killer of all: famine.
> 
> The strategy of using starvation as a weapon or means of social control is one of the oldest and most effective tactics of war. Around 400 B.C., the Spartans ended the Peloponnesian Wars by starving the Greeks into submission in their siege of Athens. Two centuries later, after Rome defeated Hannibal's army, Roman troops ploughed Carthage with salt to render it infertile.
> 
> You'd think by the second decade of 21st century  with the development of international accountability and prevention mechanisms  that the use of starvation would have disappeared from the arsenal of war weapons because it bears too high a cost for the perpetrator. The people of Sudan would beg to differ.
> 
> These war tactics are a backdrop to the renewed threat of war between Sudan in the north and South Sudan, which became independent of the Khartoum regime in July after an internationally supported referendum on self-determination. If that conflict explodes, it would easily become the largest conventional war on the face of the earth. After the extraordinary success of South Sudan's peaceful birth four months ago, the Sudan that was left behind has burned, as the Khartoum regime has lit every dry bush it can find to see what catches fire, an extension of the divide and destroy policy it has successfully pursued to maintain power since a coup in 1989. The U.S. and broader international community should use the cross-border bombing and threat of starvation as a vehicle to reenergize peace and protection efforts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Read more: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan - TIME
Click to expand...


They have been pretty reluctant in the past and if the South forges good Southern alliances this time, then they might do well.

Otherwise, more of the past.  They will start strong and once they enter the real heavy fighting the alliances break and the North moves ahead.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> *I have a feeling South Sudan is going to go to war against the Arab government in the North.*
> 
> Viewpoint: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "We left our homes with not even a cup like this one," recounted the woman from a Sudanese refugee camp in Ethiopia last month, gesturing toward a red plastic cup lying in the dirt next to her foot. Asma, a name we are using for her to help ensure her safety, said Sudanese government Antonov planes bombed her village and government soldiers, supported by ethnic militia, chased and killed civilians. They did not spare children and pregnant women, she said angrily. "It's all because we are black," Asma told our colleagues in the Satellite Sentinel Project. She said that the militias were shouting, "Grab the slaves!" Her subsequent week-long journey with 50 other women to the refugee camp was harrowing. "Many of the women had to leave their babies in their cribs."
> 
> Incredibly, Asma and the tens of thousands of Sudanese who have run for their lives across international borders are the lucky ones. Those left behind in the war zones within Sudan  places like Blue Nile, South Kordofan, Abyei, and Darfur  are subject to a regime whose war tactics break every international law on the books. But two war crimes in particular  aerial bombing against civilians and blocking humanitarian aid  are leading to the biggest killer of all: famine.
> 
> The strategy of using starvation as a weapon or means of social control is one of the oldest and most effective tactics of war. Around 400 B.C., the Spartans ended the Peloponnesian Wars by starving the Greeks into submission in their siege of Athens. Two centuries later, after Rome defeated Hannibal's army, Roman troops ploughed Carthage with salt to render it infertile.
> 
> You'd think by the second decade of 21st century  with the development of international accountability and prevention mechanisms  that the use of starvation would have disappeared from the arsenal of war weapons because it bears too high a cost for the perpetrator. The people of Sudan would beg to differ.
> 
> These war tactics are a backdrop to the renewed threat of war between Sudan in the north and South Sudan, which became independent of the Khartoum regime in July after an internationally supported referendum on self-determination. If that conflict explodes, it would easily become the largest conventional war on the face of the earth. After the extraordinary success of South Sudan's peaceful birth four months ago, the Sudan that was left behind has burned, as the Khartoum regime has lit every dry bush it can find to see what catches fire, an extension of the divide and destroy policy it has successfully pursued to maintain power since a coup in 1989. The U.S. and broader international community should use the cross-border bombing and threat of starvation as a vehicle to reenergize peace and protection efforts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Read more: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan - TIME
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> They have been pretty reluctant in the past and if the South forges good Southern alliances this time, then they might do well.
> 
> Otherwise, more of the past.  They will start strong and once they enter the real heavy fighting the alliances break and the North moves ahead.
Click to expand...


If the South gets their shit together, I hope the West gives them backing and support, the genocide and mass murder the Sudanese government is doing against Blacks in Africa makes me sick.  It sounds to me like the war is already on.


----------



## Ropey

High_Gravity said:


> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> *I have a feeling South Sudan is going to go to war against the Arab government in the North.*
> 
> Viewpoint: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Read more: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan - TIME
> 
> 
> 
> 
> They have been pretty reluctant in the past and if the South forges good Southern alliances this time, then they might do well.
> 
> Otherwise, more of the past.  They will start strong and once they enter the real heavy fighting the alliances break and the North moves ahead.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> *If the South gets their shit together*, I hope the West gives them backing and support, the genocide and mass murder the Sudanese government is doing against Blacks in Africa makes me sick.  It sounds to me like the war is already on.
Click to expand...


That's the 'if' I'm also waiting on HG.


----------



## JStone

High_Gravity said:


> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> *I have a feeling South Sudan is going to go to war against the Arab government in the North.*
> 
> Viewpoint: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Read more: Famine as a Weapon: It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan - TIME
> 
> 
> 
> 
> They have been pretty reluctant in the past and if the South forges good Southern alliances this time, then they might do well.
> 
> Otherwise, more of the past.  They will start strong and once they enter the real heavy fighting the alliances break and the North moves ahead.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If the South gets their shit together, I hope the West gives them backing and support, the genocide and mass murder the Sudanese government is doing against Blacks in Africa makes me sick.  It sounds to me like the war is already on.
Click to expand...


With Israel on their side, SS will do better than the rest of the Arab Muslime shitholes.


----------



## High_Gravity

JStone said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> They have been pretty reluctant in the past and if the South forges good Southern alliances this time, then they might do well.
> 
> Otherwise, more of the past.  They will start strong and once they enter the real heavy fighting the alliances break and the North moves ahead.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If the South gets their shit together, I hope the West gives them backing and support, the genocide and mass murder the Sudanese government is doing against Blacks in Africa makes me sick.  It sounds to me like the war is already on.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> With Israel on their side, SS will do better than the rest of the Arab Muslime shitholes.
Click to expand...


Israel and the West need to throw their backing behind the South.


----------



## JStone

High_Gravity said:


> JStone said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> If the South gets their shit together, I hope the West gives them backing and support, the genocide and mass murder the Sudanese government is doing against Blacks in Africa makes me sick.  It sounds to me like the war is already on.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> With Israel on their side, SS will do better than the rest of the Arab Muslime shitholes.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Israel and the West need to throw their backing behind the South.
Click to expand...


Israel is establishing alliances with African countries that are battling islime.  The Jews and Christians owned the region before the scourge of islime.


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan Nhial Deng Nhial: We are on brink of war








> South Sudan's foreign minister has warned his country is on the brink of war with Sudan following days of fierce fighting along the border.
> 
> Nhial Deng Nhial told the BBC Sudanese forces had invaded the town of Jau, which was in the south.
> 
> He urged the international community to intervene and said he hoped full-scale hostilities could still be avoided.
> 
> South Sudan seceded from the north in July following years of civil war in which some 1.5m people died.
> 
> The border between the north and south has not yet been officially designated.
> 
> Since July Khartoum and Juba have accused each other of supporting rebels in the border areas.
> 
> *'Tanks and aircraft'*
> 
> Mr Deng Nhial said the clashes in Jau, which he said was a town in Unity state, were the biggest threat to peace since South Sudan's independence.
> 
> "Although there have been frequent aerial bombardments of different places in the Republic of South Sudan, we think that Khartoum has raised this offensive to an entirely new level by committing ground forces to cross into the Republic of South Sudan," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
> 
> "We are still very much committed to the principle of dialogue with Khartoum - we are still hopeful that we can pull back from the brink of outright war."
> 
> Earlier, Col Philip Aguer, spokesman for South Sudan's army - the South People's Liberation Army (SPLA) - told the BBC that Khartoum had used tanks and long-range artillery in the offensive on Jau, which started on Saturday.
> 
> Antonov aircraft had also bombed the area, he said.
> 
> Southern troops had now recaptured the town, but Sudanese soldiers were still in South Sudan, he said.
> 
> "This is a war situation and if they don't withdraw, the SPLA will force them out," Col Aguer told the AFP news agency.
> 
> Across the border in the state of South Kordofan, Sudan's army has for several months been battling rebels, who once fought against Khartoum during the civil war.
> 
> South Kordofan is one of several border areas which failed to hold popular consultations about their future ahead of South Sudan's independence.
> 
> Mr Deng Nhial denied accusations that his government was supporting the rebels in the northern border areas, known as the SPLM-North.
> 
> "We had been associated with the SPLM-North during the years of our struggle. After independence we severed all military ties with our units in the north and we didn't provide any additional equipment," he said.
> 
> The foreign minister said it was important that the border be properly demarcated.



BBC News - South Sudan Nhial Deng Nhial: We are on brink of war


----------



## Mad Scientist

I wanted to say the war was just to split the country up into "Has Oil" and "Doesn't Has Oil" sides but I see the Civil War has been going on since 1955 so I guess it aint that simple.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan vs. South Sudan: The Rising Risk of a New Confrontation








> The escalating confrontation between Sudan and the new republic of South Sudan is not for lack of communication: days of talks last month in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, saw negotiators from the shrunken, bitter rump Sudan and its youthfully overconfident breakaway neighbor huddle under the exasperated watch of former South African President Thabo Mbeki to try to strike a deal on oil. Several days and a flurry of warring PowerPoint presentations later, the talks collapsed with the parties still billions of dollars apart. Sudan announced it would start confiscating one-quarter of South Sudan's oil as transit payment for the use of its pipeline. South Sudan decried that as "looting" and demanded international intervention. Negotiators from both sides left the opulent Sheraton Hotel and flew home. For a couple days, nothing much happened. Then, on Dec. 3 Sudan sent troops and captured a contested border area, where the two armies continue to spar.
> 
> "An act of war!" declared South Sudan's army spokesman Philip Aguer. That may be an exaggeration right now, but soon it could be a matter of fact. The two sides have, of course, been at war on and off for more than a half century. For now, they seem content to wage an intensifying proxy war by backing rebel forces in each other's territory, along with the occasional direct skirmishes here and there along the border. The one thing holding them back from full-blown hostilities is the same thing they're currently at odds over: oil. Sudan faces a budget gap of over $7 billion over the next five years after South Sudan's secession cut it off from most of its oil reserves. But South Sudan, at least for now, has no option for getting oil to market other than a pipeline that runs through its northern neighbor. The infant South Sudan's economy is almost entirely dependent on oil revenues, while Sudan's own economic peril requires that it earn whatever it can from the pipeline.
> 
> Stopping the oil flow is not an option, says Said al-Khatib, a senior member of Sudan's negotiating team, "Otherwise, the pipeline is not an asset to us." To exploit that asset  and, it seems, to exact some revenge  they are demanding a whopping $36-a-barrel fee for the oil transiting their territory. And with South Sudan refusing to pay that sum, Sudan says it will simply seize some of the oil instead.
> 
> No surprise, then, that tensions along the border are reaching alarming proportions. Sudan's military says the frontier area of Jau it captured a week ago is inside its own territory; South Sudan blasted the move as an "invasion." The truth, as usual, is muddled. On maps, Jau is in South Sudan, barely, but it is also where the South Sudanese army had billeted allied rebels from the Nuba Mountains across the border, drawn up under the 2005 peace deal. Those Nuba fighters are now back at war against Khartoum, and Sudan accuses South Sudan of supporting their old comrades-in-arms  a charge diplomats say appears to be valid. Last January, with the South Sudan breakaway imminent, U.N. satellite photos showed Nuba rebels  then still part of the South Sudan army  hastily building a road back to their homeland in Sudan, along which those fighters stormed north months ago. By taking Jau, Sudan has cut off that link. The same road has also been used by fleeing refugees and appears to be the only route into the area for humanitarian aid  which Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has barred, using hunger as a weapon to supplement his forces' aerial bombardment of the area's villages. The same tactic is being employed in Blue Nile, another Sudanese border state in conflict since Sudan's divorce.
> 
> The border wars are increasingly spilling into South Sudan. Khartoum blocked trade across the border months ago, and in November Sudanese planes bombed several areas inside South Sudan, including refugee camps that Khartoum says are used for rebel recruitment. Meanwhile, South Sudanese militias with apparent links to Khartoum and Eritrea continue to wreak havoc in South Sudan.



Read more: Sudan vs. South Sudan: The Rising Risk of a New Conflict - TIME


----------



## High_Gravity

Mad Scientist said:


> I wanted to say the war was just to split the country up into "Has Oil" and "Doesn't Has Oil" sides but I see the Civil War has been going on since 1955 so I guess it aint that simple.



The Muslims in North Sudan have been comitting genocide on the ethnic Africans in Darfur, Kordofan and Southern Sudan for decades, they would still do this even if there were no oil involved at all.


----------



## JStone

High_Gravity said:


> Mad Scientist said:
> 
> 
> 
> I wanted to say the war was just to split the country up into "Has Oil" and "Doesn't Has Oil" sides but I see the Civil War has been going on since 1955 so I guess it aint that simple.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Muslims in North Sudan have been comitting genocide on the ethnic Africans in Darfur, Kordofan and Southern Sudan for decades, they would still do this even if there were no oil involved at all.
Click to expand...


allahu akbar, motherfuckers!


> The genocide in Darfur has claimed 400,000 lives and displaced over 2,500,000 people. More than one hundred people continue to die each day; five thousand die every month.
> 
> Since February 2003, the Sudanese government in Khartoum and the government-sponsored Janjaweed militia have used rape, displacement, organized starvation, threats against aid workers and mass murder. Violence, disease, and displacement continue to kill thousands of innocent Darfurians every month.
> 
> Genocide in Darfur, Sudan | Darfur Scorecard


 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-ojg9UjMk0]The Genocide In Darfur - YouTube[/ame]


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan says 17 killed in Sudanese air raids









> JUBA  Sudanese air raids killed 17 people in the South Sudan border state of Western Bahr al-Ghazal on Thursday, the second day of stepped-up bombing along the northern frontier, Juba's military spokesman said.
> 
> Khartoum dismissed the allegations as "incorrect."
> 
> "Those who are killed are innocent civilians who are looking after their cattle," South Sudan's military spokesman Philip Aguer told AFP, adding that the casualties came on the second day of bombing in the Boro El Madina area.
> 
> "This information is completely incorrect," the Sudanese military spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said in Khartoum.
> 
> In a separate statement, Sudan's foreign ministry alleged that 350 members of Darfur-based rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had crossed into South Sudan on Wednesday.
> 
> The ministry's spokesman, Al-Obeid Meruh, called on the international community to pressure "the government of South Sudan to stop supporting these troops and disarm them."
> 
> South Sudan separated from Sudan in July after an overwhelming vote for independence that followed more than two decades of civil war.
> 
> Each side has accused the other of supporting rebels inside its borders.
> 
> Aguer said bombing had resumed over the past two days around Jau, a disputed area along the South Kordofan-Unity state border.
> 
> There were no casualty reports from that area "because the bombing was intensive," he said.
> 
> "SPLA has placed its forces on maximum alert" since Christmas, he said, referring to the Sudan People's Liberation Army.
> 
> "The intention of Khartoum is to annex some of these areas."
> 
> Sudan's military spokesman, Saad, in turn accused South Sudan of building up its own troops in the Jau area to attack inside Sudan.
> 
> Access to the areas is restricted, making independent confirmation of the claims difficult.
> 
> United Nations peacekeepers are based in South Sudan, but AFP was unable to reach any officials from the mission.



AFP: South Sudan says 17 killed in Sudanese air raids


----------



## JStone

High_Gravity said:


> South Sudan says 17 killed in Sudanese air raids
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> JUBA  Sudanese air raids killed 17 people in the South Sudan border state of Western Bahr al-Ghazal on Thursday, the second day of stepped-up bombing along the northern frontier, Juba's military spokesman said.
> 
> Khartoum dismissed the allegations as "incorrect."
> 
> "Those who are killed are innocent civilians who are looking after their cattle," South Sudan's military spokesman Philip Aguer told AFP, adding that the casualties came on the second day of bombing in the Boro El Madina area.
> 
> "This information is completely incorrect," the Sudanese military spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said in Khartoum.
> 
> In a separate statement, Sudan's foreign ministry alleged that 350 members of Darfur-based rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had crossed into South Sudan on Wednesday.
> 
> The ministry's spokesman, Al-Obeid Meruh, called on the international community to pressure "the government of South Sudan to stop supporting these troops and disarm them."
> 
> South Sudan separated from Sudan in July after an overwhelming vote for independence that followed more than two decades of civil war.
> 
> Each side has accused the other of supporting rebels inside its borders.
> 
> Aguer said bombing had resumed over the past two days around Jau, a disputed area along the South Kordofan-Unity state border.
> 
> There were no casualty reports from that area "because the bombing was intensive," he said.
> 
> "SPLA has placed its forces on maximum alert" since Christmas, he said, referring to the Sudan People's Liberation Army.
> 
> "The intention of Khartoum is to annex some of these areas."
> 
> Sudan's military spokesman, Saad, in turn accused South Sudan of building up its own troops in the Jau area to attack inside Sudan.
> 
> Access to the areas is restricted, making independent confirmation of the claims difficult.
> 
> United Nations peacekeepers are based in South Sudan, but AFP was unable to reach any officials from the mission.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AFP: South Sudan says 17 killed in Sudanese air raids
Click to expand...


Israel is providing military equipment and training to S. Sudan and the virgin chasers will be getting into the panties of the 72 whores in paradise.


----------



## High_Gravity

JStone said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> South Sudan says 17 killed in Sudanese air raids
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> JUBA  Sudanese air raids killed 17 people in the South Sudan border state of Western Bahr al-Ghazal on Thursday, the second day of stepped-up bombing along the northern frontier, Juba's military spokesman said.
> 
> Khartoum dismissed the allegations as "incorrect."
> 
> "Those who are killed are innocent civilians who are looking after their cattle," South Sudan's military spokesman Philip Aguer told AFP, adding that the casualties came on the second day of bombing in the Boro El Madina area.
> 
> "This information is completely incorrect," the Sudanese military spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said in Khartoum.
> 
> In a separate statement, Sudan's foreign ministry alleged that 350 members of Darfur-based rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had crossed into South Sudan on Wednesday.
> 
> The ministry's spokesman, Al-Obeid Meruh, called on the international community to pressure "the government of South Sudan to stop supporting these troops and disarm them."
> 
> South Sudan separated from Sudan in July after an overwhelming vote for independence that followed more than two decades of civil war.
> 
> Each side has accused the other of supporting rebels inside its borders.
> 
> Aguer said bombing had resumed over the past two days around Jau, a disputed area along the South Kordofan-Unity state border.
> 
> There were no casualty reports from that area "because the bombing was intensive," he said.
> 
> "SPLA has placed its forces on maximum alert" since Christmas, he said, referring to the Sudan People's Liberation Army.
> 
> "The intention of Khartoum is to annex some of these areas."
> 
> Sudan's military spokesman, Saad, in turn accused South Sudan of building up its own troops in the Jau area to attack inside Sudan.
> 
> Access to the areas is restricted, making independent confirmation of the claims difficult.
> 
> United Nations peacekeepers are based in South Sudan, but AFP was unable to reach any officials from the mission.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AFP: South Sudan says 17 killed in Sudanese air raids
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Israel is providing military equipment and training to S. Sudan and the virgin chasers will be getting into the panties of the 72 whores in paradise.
Click to expand...


The US needs to be doing the same thing, as well as the rest of the Western world, Sudan is getting plenty of help from the Arab countries.


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan 'Lost boy' tells of hope for new nation 








> (CNN) -- It's been almost two decades since I was separated from my family, my home and my past as a war child. Last year I was able to travel back to East Africa to find my parents, reconnect with others who survived the war and place my vote in the referendum that would eventually lead to the division of Sudan into two independent states.
> 
> On July 9 2011, the Republic of South Sudan was born. It's hard to describe how I felt that day as I stood among tens of thousands of South Sudanese men, women and children waving our new flag and screaming "South Oye! Separation Oye!"
> 
> 
> Through two civil wars that lasted a total of 39 years, this is what we had hoped, prayed and fought for; it was hard to believe it was happening in my lifetime.
> 
> Yes, each one of us has fears, hopes and dreams about how we are transforming into a nation. As a citizen, I don't mind us having to crawl and take small steps in our progress. Development is not a race and for it to be sustainable it should be holistic. We're starting from scratch and have a lot of ground to cover.
> 
> I was born into Sudan's civil war and before I could read or write I was using an AK47 in the conflict between the Muslim north and Animist/Christian south over the land and natural resources. I protected myself, survived and ended up in the Western world where I had to play catch-up with youth who had much calmer childhoods.
> 
> It was never easy, but I always tried my best and kept complaints out of my heart by holding tightly onto the hope that one day, I would read and write. This is a dream for many boys and girls who were born on the battlefields of Sudan simply because during the civil war there were no schools at all. Now there are a few in Juba and a significant need for more all across the country.
> 
> My main concern for the newest nation in the world is not tribalism or corruption -- though they both exist, it's the fact that we are still at war with the National Congress (NCP) of Sudan, the governing official party of Sudan, and this needs to be permanently addressed before moving onto smaller issues.
> 
> A child soldier's new life Five months ago I went to South Sudan to vote and raise the flag on the soil of my new country. While we were beginning the countdown to independence the NCP, which is headed by Sudan President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, raided Abyei and forced innocent people from their land. Why? Well, the region produces 70% of our oil.
> 
> 
> As I write this article there are still many innocent people suffering and dying all across the country. If the International Criminal Court does not increase its pressure on President Al Bashir, a return to war and bloodshed over The Republic of South Sudan's land and natural resources is very likely.
> 
> That being said, I am very optimistic about the future of my country. We all feel a strong sense of ownership when we think of The Republic of South Sudan because everybody sacrificed and suffered to get us to where we are now. We need to feel the same sense of ownership towards finding solutions to our problems; homemade solutions need to be found to fix what we messed up.
> 
> To do this we need to work together with world powers while ensuring that the resulting plans hold the interests of South Sudan at heart. The Republic of South Sudan is still a baby; our leaders should be willing to take small steps towards developments and not move too fast.
> 
> The solutions we put into place need to be in line with our long-term interests while offering short-term relief, which is not always that easy to do. But if the government of South Sudan can provide security and education, the rest will begin to fall into place and matters such as finding alternative energy sources for Juba city can be taken care of.



South Sudan 'Lost boy' tells of hope for new nation - CNN.com


----------



## High_Gravity

In a Fledgling Country, Perils for the Press








> In a thatched hut in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, about 10 young men and women sat on lawn chairs made of brown plastic. They loudly typed on the computer keyboards on the tables in front of them. Two fans were blowing heavily. But the loud humming, which turned all speaking in the room into yelling, didnt come from them. It came from the backyard, and when it suddenly stopped, the young people saved their work. Minutes later their screens turned dark.
> 
> It was hours to deadline for The Citizen, until recently the only daily print newspaper in South Sudan, and its staff had to wait until the generator was refueled.
> 
> Making a newspaper anywhere these days is not easy; making a daily newspaper in South Sudan can seem nearly impossible. The country is twice the size of Arizona and 80 percent of its roughly 10 million people are illiterate. Power losses, a scarcity of paved roads, scattershot Internet access and increasing tribal violence make it that much harder.
> 
> And yet since its founding in 2005 The Citizen hasnt let down its readers a single day. But now the paper faces another challenge in the form of a new military leadership  one not always hospitable to a free press  running the worlds youngest state, one that gained independence only last year. On a morning in mid-November, a reporter named Ater Garang Ariath entered the news hut where two of his colleagues were discussing the days events. The editor in chief, Nhial Bol, was elsewhere. He had other things to do: the papers supplier of newsprint had stopped supplying it, so The Citizen had to decrease its circulation to 2,000 copies from 6,000.
> 
> That day, Mr. Ariath, 27, covered a dialogue forum for representatives of the South Sudanese media and national security services. He walked the mile to the event, since there was no bus stop nearby and a boda-boda, or motorbike taxi, was too expensive for him. Mr. Ariath said he made about 900 South Sudanese pounds a month, around $300. He has to write up to 40 articles for that and supports his family with the money.
> 
> Mr. Ariath began his career as a reporter at the paper of his refugee camp in neighboring Uganda. There is no one at The Citizen whose life hasnt been affected by the war. Another reporter, Joseph Lagu Jackson, was a former child soldier and learned how to use an AK-47 at the age of 8; the news editor received death threats from the Arab rulers in the north when he was a radio journalist.
> 
> Though Mr. Ariath is very proud to work for one of the countrys most popular papers, he said the 16-page, English-language tabloid needed more editors. It is full of mistakes and typos, sometimes in the banner headline on the front page. Many reporters are not fluent in English. Mr. Ariath also said the paper needed more color. In our pictures, Obama is white, he said.
> 
> Since independence on July 9, several newspapers have been newly established in South Sudan. The countrys new constitution guarantees freedom of the press. But currently, that freedom is in jeopardy.
> 
> In October, another South Sudanese newspaper, The Destiny, ran a column that described the marriage of President Salva Kiir Mayardits daughter as unpatriotic because she had married an Ethiopian. The columnist and the editor in chief were arrested by the National Security Services and held in prison for two weeks. The Destiny was shut down. President Kiir later said the arrests were justified. The Destiny had tried to become South Sudans second daily.
> 
> A few weeks later in December, Alfred Taban, a former BBC correspondent in Khartoum, started the Juba Monitor which is now South Sudans second English daily. Mr. Tabans Khartoum Monitor was banned by the Arab rulers along with five other South Sudanese owned newspapers printed in Khartoum when the south became independent. The Juba Monitor is also printed at The Citizen which is the only newspaper with a printing machine in South Sudan.
> 
> At the dialogue forum for the media and security services, both sides were called on to get along with each other. But the event didnt seem to ease tensions. A spokesman for the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, or S.P.L.A. as the new countrys army is more popularly known, told reporters what they could cover and what would be risky for them  a list that included covering the army, for example. Philip Chol, a spokesman for military intelligence, said: If youre a responsible journalist, you will do something that is applicable to the country.
> 
> Many reporters got angry. The recent actions are actually the ones we suffered from in Khartoum, said Mr. Taban, addressing the case of The Destiny. I mean were trying to establish a democracy here.
> 
> Many of the reporters who had come to the event said they had had bad experiences with the new military leaders who now ruled the country after years of oppression by the regime in the north. Mr. Ariath said when he once wrote about an officials business deals, he got a phone call. If the paper ran the article, the person at the other end said, Mr. Ariath would get into trouble. The Citizen ran the article. Mr. Ariath was not arrested, but the editor in chief, Mr. Bol, was. Mr. Bol has been arrested three times since 2007 by South Sudanese authorities for articles that accused officials of corruption and mismanagement.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/b...-rough-start-to-press-freedom.html?ref=africa


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan asks Khartoum to end "bombardment" of border areas








> January 4, 2012 - (BENTIU/JUBA)  South Sudans President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Wednesday, described the Republic of Sudan as main challenge to the worlds newest nation, as Juba accuses Khartoum of more bombings.
> 
> The two countries have had a tense relationship since South Sudan seceded in July as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of conflict in which two million died.
> 
> All our challenges come from Sudan", he said, adding that landlocked South Sudan had peaceful relations with its other five neighbours.
> 
> Sudan remained a "thorn" in the side of country, which is one of the poorest in the world. Since independence in July South Sudan has been blighted by rebellions, cattle rustling, violence between ethnic groups and sporadic border skirmishes with north Sudan Armed Forces.
> 
> On Sunday the spokesperson of the South Sudanese government, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, accused Sudans military (SAF) of bombing Raja County of Western Bahr-al-Ghazal state killing nearly 40 people.
> 
> Sudan has always denied bombing South Sudanese territory saying that any bombings took place in north Sudanese territory, claiming that the attacks were against rebels fighting Khartoum government.
> 
> Marial told the Sudan Radio Service on 1 December that South Sudans President Salva Kiir Mayardit has warned Khartoum over the issue.
> 
> "The president has sent a message to the Republic of Sudan in Khartoum that they should not engage in hostilities by actually getting unlawfully into the sovereign state of the Republic of South Sudan."
> 
> As well as Western Bahr-al-Ghazal, South Sudan has also accused SAF of bombing its territory in Upper Nile, Unity, NorthernBahr-al-Ghazal states.
> 
> In an address on South Sudan TV on Wednesday Kiir said that his country was trying to avoid responding to Khartoums "provocations.
> 
> He expressed hope that the two countries would reach a compromise to establish mutual bilateral ties during upcoming negotiations over oil, the contested border and other issues.
> 
> The President also claimed that Khartoum was indirectly responsible for the recent violence among the Luo-Nuer and Murle ethnic groups in Jonglei state, as they had helped arm rebel groups in the region. Khartoum denies this and counters that Juba supports rebels in its territory.
> 
> The countrys first President also warned South Sudanese politicians not to instigate tribal conflict. Between 20,000 to 50,000 have been displaced according the UN and hundreds expected to have been killed, in the Luo-Nuers revenge attack.



South Sudan asks Khartoum to end "bombardment" of border areas - Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan Ethnic Violence Leaves At Least 22 Dead 








> JUBA, South Sudan  Members of a South Sudanese tribe targeted in massive attacks late last month have killed 22 people and burned down three villages of the opposing tribe in new attacks, a state governor said Monday.
> 
> Thousands of youth from the Lou Nuer tribe launched a series of cattle raiding attacks in late December and early January in Jonglei state that sent up tens of thousands of villagers fleeing for their lives.
> 
> The U.N. has said it is possible hundreds of people were killed. A local official, Pibor County Commissioner Joshua Konyi, said that 3,182 people were killed, mostly women and children. The central government has cast doubt on that figure, though, and says it is investigating. Konyi is a member of the Merle, the tribe that was attacked.
> 
> "Pibor county is quite large. It is not possible for the commissioner (to investigate) with the terrain and the difficulty of movement," said government spokesman Barnaba Benjamin Marial.
> 
> Whatever the toll, the damage done by the columns of armed fighters was severe. South Sudan's government has declared Jonglei a disaster zone, and the U.N. has said a major emergency operation is under way.
> 
> But aid is not yet reaching the region. Mary Boyoi Gola, a representative of the Murle community on a team of peace negotiators, who is in Pibor, told The Associated Press on Monday that food is scarce.
> 
> Meanwhile, new fighting is taking place. The state governor, Kuol Manyang Juuk, said Monday that Murle fighters burned down three villages, killed 22 people and wounded 20 on Sunday and Monday. Fighting is ongoing.
> 
> Juuk said the attacks were either "retaliation or a continuation of the hostilities that have been going on all along."
> 
> While the Murle attacks follow the recent Lou Nuer raids, the Murle also raided Lou Nuer communities in Jonglei as recently as August. Lou Nuer community leaders say the August attacks  which left more than 600 dead  were the driving force behind the Lou Nuer's recent raids.
> 
> Juuk said that South Sudan's military hopes to launch a civilian disarmament exercise by the end of the month to remove the automatic weapons held by much of the region's youth.
> 
> "Cattle rustling has been there since 1898," said Marial. "But in those days they were using spears and sticks. Now they have acquired a lot of weapons during the civil war and this has made the cattle rustling to be much more damaging than anything else."
> 
> Dina Parmer, a policy adviser for the peacebuilding organization PACT, says the both the government of South Sudan and the international community must do a better job of preventing the attacks. Parmer cast doubt on whether a disarmament campaign can stop the cycle of violence.
> 
> "This is an issue of preparedness," she said. "We know these conflicts happen, to some extent they are predictable."
> 
> Parmer said the raids will likely continue without any credible and peaceful forum for communities to address their grievances and seek justice.
> 
> "Violence has become the norm. It has become the only way in which to get noticed and the only way in which to get what people need," she said. Parmer said the rural communities of Jonglei have almost no access to South Sudan's justice system.



South Sudan Ethnic Violence Leaves At Least 22 Dead


----------



## High_Gravity

Witnesses give graphic accounts of South Sudan ethnic violence








> REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- Neighbors found the 18-month-old boy crying alone in the bush outside his village of Wek in South Sudan.
> 
> Both his parents had been shot to death about two weeks ago during ethnic clashes between the Murle and Luo-Nuer tribes in Jonglei state. The attackers had smashed the childs head against a tree and left him for dead, according to witness accounts collected by the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders. His head injuries were severe.
> 
> He was abandoned, without any help, a witness told the group, which released a report Tuesday on the violence. We, the community, came looking for people who needed help in the bush and we found him, still alive and alone.
> 
> Doctors Without Borders did not release the names of the witnesses out of concern for their safety.
> About 55 people died in the Jan. 11 assault, which left dozens wounded. Many remain missing. The violence was carried out by Murle tribesmen in revenge for attacks by the opposing Luo-Nuer tribe late last year.
> 
> At least 120,000 people in Jongwei are in need of aid after violent attacks in December and January, according to the United Nations. There are no reliable estimates of the dead, with victims scattered over vast areas of bush.
> 
> It was evening when we were attacked, an 18-year-old woman from Wek, whose husband and one of her children were shot and killed, told Doctors Without Borders. People all around us were being shot and cut with knives. When I heard the shooting, I tried to run away with my husband and my children, but I was shot in the leg and I fell down.
> 
> Doctors Without Borders treated 94 people at the site for stabbing and gunshot wounds. More than half of the 13 victims airlifted out by the group were less than 5 years old.
> 
> Accounts of attacks in late December by Lou-Nuer gunmen against Murle tribesman near Pibor were equally grim.
> 
> A 24-year-old woman fled her village near Pibor with her 3-year-old daughter, along with two other women with their boys, ages 10 and 11, and hid in the grass. But the attackers heard her child crying and came for them.
> 
> They abducted my child and slit the throats of the two boys in front of us. They told us three women to run -- we ran 10 meters and they started shooting. The other two women were killed right away. I was shot in the leg so I fell down. They came over to me and shot me in the head to make sure I was dead and left me there.
> 
> Shot in the cheek and leg, she survived alone in the bush for a week by crawling to a river for water. Later she found out her mother had been killed. Her daughter is still missing.
> 
> My only child has been taken; I feel so alone and its very painful, she said. Ten people have been killed from my family, four women and six men. Eight people have been killed from my husbands family.
> 
> Intercommunal violence between the Murle and Lou-Nuer tribes has been going on for centuries, mainly around the issue of cattle rustling, which brings honor to young tribal men when they successfully steal stock and increase their own herds. Some 80,000 cattle were stolen in the recent violence. The loss of cattle, the main store of wealth in these communities, leaves families without a livelihood.
> 
> But battles that were once fought with spears are now fought with guns and carry high fatalities. Vast numbers of weapons can be found in South Sudan after decades of civil war that led last July to its independence from Sudan.
> 
> The Enough Project, a human rights group, said in a report released Thursday that the Sudanese government had fueled the intercommunal violence during the civil war in order to destabilize the south. The recent violence underscores the weakness of South Sudan's police and army, and the breakdown of traditional authority structures, just one of many threats facing the fragile new state, according to the group.



Witnesses give graphic accounts of South Sudan ethnic violence - latimes.com


----------



## Baruch Menachem

Of course places like Belfast and Beirut are so much more civilized.


----------



## High_Gravity

More than 70 killed in weekend violence in South Sudan 








> REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- South Sudan, the world's newest nation, saw more than 70 people killed over the weekend in an inter-communal attack, the government reported Monday, following on recent violence that killed hundreds of people, including women and children.
> 
> Thousands of cattle were stolen in the Saturday clashes.
> 
> The latest violence in Warrap state underscores the fragility of the new nation, which lacks sufficient security forces to prevent attacks between communities in a vast nation with few roads, poor education and little development.
> 
> Interior Minister Alison Manani Magaya said Monday that about 70 people were killed when a  Nuer tribe from neighboring Unity state attacked a Dinka community, the Associated Press reported.
> 
> The nearest police station was three hours' walk from the village where the attacks took place, according to the Paris-based Sudan Tribune. The violence saw attacks on the Luac Jang clan of the Dinka tribe in Tonj East County, according to officials from the region cited in the reports.
> 
> The violence is not directly related to the inter-communal massacres that took place in December and January in Jonglei state between the Lou Nuer and Murle tribes. But like the violence in Jonglei, cattle rustling attacks and massacres have been going on for many years.
> 
> South Sudan seceded from Sudan last July after a referendum overwhelmingly backed independence, but the new nation faces multiple challenges, including tensions with Sudan over fees to transit South Sudan oil through Sudanese pipelines.
> 
> African Union talks over the weekend failed to reach a deal to settle the oil dispute. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that tensions between the two nations threatened the peace.
> 
> South Sudan faces a testing future, with only about a quarter of the population and 12% of women literate. Inter-tribal feuds that have simmered for decades have broken out in recent months, a situation complicated because the decades-long civil war that ended in 2005 left the nation awash with weapons.
> 
> But Madot Dut Deng, speaker of the Warrap state legislature, told the Sudan Tribune that the people in Tonj East county were disarmed last year and couldn't defend themselves. He said poor roads made it difficult for the police or army to move in quickly to prevent attacks.
> 
> After independence in July, both sides in the long-running tribal feud were to disarm simultaneously as the first step to a peace deal, but the process broke down.
> 
> Magaya, the interior minister, accused Sudan of arming the attackers. Sudanese military spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad denied the allegations, Agence France-Presse reported.
> 
> "We don't have any connection with this," he said. "We never support any armed opposition in South Sudan or any place," he said.



More than 70 killed in weekend violence in South Sudan - latimes.com


----------



## High_Gravity

In South Sudan, oil shutoff is a matter of national pride








> Reporting from Juba, South Sudan To outsiders, the move appears suicidal, a recipe for ruining the economy and possibly returning to war.
> 
> But on the streets of Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the decision to turn off the flow from oil wells that produce 98% of the government's revenue has triggered bursts of defiance and national pride.
> 
> "The oil was shut down because it's our oil. We need our rights," said truck driver Nimeiry Thomas, 30, his face dripping with sweat in Juba's Konyo Konyo market.
> 
> One of the world's poorest countries, South Sudan made the move last month in an escalating dispute with northern neighbor Sudan, from which it seceded in July. South Sudan took with it about three-quarters of the former country's oil reserves, but the only route to market is a pipeline that runs across Sudan.
> 
> Since the secession, the two countries have continued to quarrel over issues that include borders and the transit fees Sudan charges to get the South's oil to market. South Sudan's decision to shut off the oil seriously damages both countries' economies and has stirred fear of renewed fighting. Both presidents talk openly of war.
> 
> None of that appears to have damped the mood in Juba. Among government ministers, citizens and soldiers, the talk is of a willingness to endure what it takes to break the hated economic lifeline through Sudan. They survived a 22-year civil war with the north, they say, and they are prepared to suffer again for what they see as their rightful share of the oil wealth.
> 
> "Every time people dismissed us, every single battle, we have won," declared Pagan Amum, the country's chief negotiator on the oil dispute, his eyes flashing.
> 
> The country is united, he said. "The South Sudanese will rally around their government. South Sudan is going to emerge as a strong nation in this region with a strong economy."
> 
> Outside experts are not so sure. They warn that once the shutoff begins to bite, life will get even worse in a country where half the people live in poverty and three-quarters are illiterate. There is concern that parents will no longer be able to afford school fees for the trickle of uniformed children plying the dirt roads on their way to class. Food and medicine will be harder to come by.
> 
> Alex Vines, an analyst with the London-based think tank Chatham House, said north and south have peered into the abyss and eventually will strike a deal. "But there is a danger that the brinkmanship could result in unintended hostilities," he said.
> 
> The African Union, as well as countries such as Britain and energy-hungry China, which gets about 6% of its oil from South Sudan, are trying to broker a settlement. The focus is on setting an agreed transit price for shipping the oil out of South Sudan through the north's pipeline.
> 
> So far, they are not even close. Talks foundered last month after Khartoum took over ships loaded with South Sudan oil, seizing $850 million worth, to cover its claim for a $36-a-barrel transit fee. South Sudan, willing to pay $1 a barrel (which is close to the global norm), called the seizures theft.
> 
> The two countries signed a nonaggression agreement Feb. 10 that is supposed to keep the peace until a broader solution is found. But the pact was broken within hours.



In South Sudan, oil shutoff is a matter of national pride - latimes.com


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan to Implement Jonglei Disarmament Program








> The South Sudanese Army is being readied to deploy on a small-arms disarmament program in Jonglei state. The government hopes to disarm groups of cattle raiders that have made 2012 a violent year for the new country.
> 
> The Southern People's Liberation Army is being set to deploy in areas of Jonglei state this week, in an attempt to disarm and collect some 20,000 small arms from the Murle and Lou Nuer tribes.
> 
> Both groups have been involved in a violent string of retaliatory cattle rattles, which the United Nations says has affected more than 120,000 people.
> 
> The disarmament campaign was initiated by South Sudan President Salva Kirr. He plans to use the Army to collect the weapons either voluntarily or by force.
> 
> The SPLA spokesperson Phillip Aguer says the goal is peaceful, but the army is ready to use force, if necessary.
> 
> &#8220;In case there are people who are dodging and trying to hide their weapons, the army will intervene and do the fighting or, if they are running from the army and the police, we will go in,&#8221; said Aguer.
> 
> South Sudan has received criticism from both the United States and the United Nations. They feel conducting the campaign now will only increase tensions and that the government should strive for reconciliation before disarmament.
> 
> But Aguer says the time is now.
> 
> &#8220;If you wait for the population to achieve it&#8217;s goals and objectives, you will have people attacking themselves and dying," said Aguer. "So it&#8217;s better to do the same process concurrently.&#8221;
> 
> Jonah Leff is a consultant for the Small Arms Survey - an independent organization monitoring international weapons trafficking - and has recently been on the ground in Jonglei state. He feels the campaign will certainly end in violence.
> 
> &#8220;I&#8217;ve heard from leaders of both communities, both the Lou Nuer and the Murle, that they will resist a forcible disarmament, which means that they will fight back," said Leff. "So I would expect the SPLA to respond with technicals [technological advanced weapons]. They&#8217;ll have greater manpower, such as heavy machine guns and possibly even tanks.&#8221;
> 
> Leff also fears the possibility of disarming the tribes unevenly, which may leave some vulnerable to attack.



South Sudan to Implement Jonglei Disarmament Program | News | English


----------



## High_Gravity

Scores dead in a new bout of South Sudan tribal violence



> REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- Scores of people were believed to have been killed in a new bout of ethnic violence in South Sudan, following similar incidents in recent months.
> 
> The death toll could climb, with bodies said to be strewn in about nine locations and dozens of people having fled into the bush to escape the attackers.
> 
> Attacks and counterattacks that involve members of the Murle and Nuer tribes have spiked in the last 12 months, though the bad blood goes back for generations and originated in the practice of cattle raiding.
> 
> Some 120,000 people have been displaced in the recent attacks in Jonglei state in December and January, according to humanitarian agencies.
> 
> The latest attack Friday involved Murle militias attacking Nuer villages in the remote Romyereh area in Upper Nile State, near Jonglei, according to the California-based humanitarian agency International Medical Corps, or IMC.
> 
> The reported death toll ranged from 100 to 200, although some local officials placed the number higher. There were also fears that children were abducted during the violence.
> Fighting continues in the area, according to the International Medical Corps, which sent a team to the scene. They saw bodies scattered around and ferried the casualties five hours by boat to Akobo County Hospital for treatment by an IMC medical team. The site of the attacks was not accessible by road.
> 
> According to a statement on the International Medical Corps website, 60 victims had arrived in the hospital, half of them with gunshot wounds. One died on the scene and several serious cases had to be evacuated.
> 
> During the rescue effort, fighting forced the IMC team to take shelter at a base held by UNMISS, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan established last year to consolidate security and create the conditions for development. UNMISS and the South Sudan army have not been able to stop the tribal attacks, in part because the clashes have occurred in a vast remote region with few roads.
> 
> In December, hundreds of Murle were killed in attacks by a Nuer militia that calls itself the White Army, known to have at least 8,000 fighters -- a much larger force than UNMISS could handle.
> 
> The latest violence comes with about 12,000 South Sudanese soldiers deployed in Jonglei state to disarm the rival tribes by force if necessary. The disarmament was launched Monday, but the continuing tribal violence underscores the likely resistance to disarmament.
> 
> South Sudan has carried out a successive disarmament campaign involving the two tribes, all of which have failed, mainly because of the government's inability to provide security for remote communities, according to analysts. Perceiving a threat from neighbors, residents have rapidly rearmed.



Scores dead in a new bout of South Sudan tribal violence - latimes.com


----------



## Ropey

High_Gravity said:


> Scores dead in a new bout of South Sudan tribal violence
> 
> 
> 
> 
> REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- Scores of people were believed to have been killed in a new bout of ethnic violence in South Sudan, following similar incidents in recent months.
> 
> The death toll could climb, with bodies said to be strewn in about nine locations and dozens of people having fled into the bush to escape the attackers.
> 
> Attacks and counterattacks that involve members of the Murle and Nuer tribes have spiked in the last 12 months, though the bad blood goes back for generations and originated in the practice of cattle raiding.
> 
> Some 120,000 people have been displaced in the recent attacks in Jonglei state in December and January, according to humanitarian agencies.
> 
> The latest attack Friday involved Murle militias attacking Nuer villages in the remote Romyereh area in Upper Nile State, near Jonglei, according to the California-based humanitarian agency International Medical Corps, or IMC.
> 
> The reported death toll ranged from 100 to 200, although some local officials placed the number higher. There were also fears that children were abducted during the violence.
> Fighting continues in the area, according to the International Medical Corps, which sent a team to the scene. They saw bodies scattered around and ferried the casualties five hours by boat to Akobo County Hospital for treatment by an IMC medical team. The site of the attacks was not accessible by road.
> 
> According to a statement on the International Medical Corps website, 60 victims had arrived in the hospital, half of them with gunshot wounds. One died on the scene and several serious cases had to be evacuated.
> 
> During the rescue effort, fighting forced the IMC team to take shelter at a base held by UNMISS, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan established last year to consolidate security and create the conditions for development. UNMISS and the South Sudan army have not been able to stop the tribal attacks, in part because the clashes have occurred in a vast remote region with few roads.
> 
> In December, hundreds of Murle were killed in attacks by a Nuer militia that calls itself the White Army, known to have at least 8,000 fighters -- a much larger force than UNMISS could handle.
> 
> The latest violence comes with about 12,000 South Sudanese soldiers deployed in Jonglei state to disarm the rival tribes by force if necessary. The disarmament was launched Monday, but the continuing tribal violence underscores the likely resistance to disarmament.
> 
> South Sudan has carried out a successive disarmament campaign involving the two tribes, all of which have failed, mainly because of the government's inability to provide security for remote communities, according to analysts. Perceiving a threat from neighbors, residents have rapidly rearmed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Scores dead in a new bout of South Sudan tribal violence - latimes.com
Click to expand...





South Sudan as a viable country must be able to protect the country's boundary perimeter and from the internecine violence. Until this occurs the ebb and flow from both of these events will continue to provide instability, death to this fledgling country that lies between a rock and a hard place.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> Scores dead in a new bout of South Sudan tribal violence
> 
> 
> 
> 
> REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- Scores of people were believed to have been killed in a new bout of ethnic violence in South Sudan, following similar incidents in recent months.
> 
> The death toll could climb, with bodies said to be strewn in about nine locations and dozens of people having fled into the bush to escape the attackers.
> 
> Attacks and counterattacks that involve members of the Murle and Nuer tribes have spiked in the last 12 months, though the bad blood goes back for generations and originated in the practice of cattle raiding.
> 
> Some 120,000 people have been displaced in the recent attacks in Jonglei state in December and January, according to humanitarian agencies.
> 
> The latest attack Friday involved Murle militias attacking Nuer villages in the remote Romyereh area in Upper Nile State, near Jonglei, according to the California-based humanitarian agency International Medical Corps, or IMC.
> 
> The reported death toll ranged from 100 to 200, although some local officials placed the number higher. There were also fears that children were abducted during the violence.
> Fighting continues in the area, according to the International Medical Corps, which sent a team to the scene. They saw bodies scattered around and ferried the casualties five hours by boat to Akobo County Hospital for treatment by an IMC medical team. The site of the attacks was not accessible by road.
> 
> According to a statement on the International Medical Corps website, 60 victims had arrived in the hospital, half of them with gunshot wounds. One died on the scene and several serious cases had to be evacuated.
> 
> During the rescue effort, fighting forced the IMC team to take shelter at a base held by UNMISS, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan established last year to consolidate security and create the conditions for development. UNMISS and the South Sudan army have not been able to stop the tribal attacks, in part because the clashes have occurred in a vast remote region with few roads.
> 
> In December, hundreds of Murle were killed in attacks by a Nuer militia that calls itself the White Army, known to have at least 8,000 fighters -- a much larger force than UNMISS could handle.
> 
> The latest violence comes with about 12,000 South Sudanese soldiers deployed in Jonglei state to disarm the rival tribes by force if necessary. The disarmament was launched Monday, but the continuing tribal violence underscores the likely resistance to disarmament.
> 
> South Sudan has carried out a successive disarmament campaign involving the two tribes, all of which have failed, mainly because of the government's inability to provide security for remote communities, according to analysts. Perceiving a threat from neighbors, residents have rapidly rearmed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Scores dead in a new bout of South Sudan tribal violence - latimes.com
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> South Sudan as a viable country must be able to protect the country's boundary perimeter and from the internecine violence. Until this occurs the ebb and flow from both of these events will continue to provide instability, death to this fledgling country that lies between a rock and a hard place.
Click to expand...


To be honest Ropey I see a war with Sudan in their future before they can start making any real progress, the Sudanese troops keep raiding villages in South Sudan and making air strikes on them, and than denying it to the media. That shit has to stop.


----------



## Ropey

High_Gravity said:


> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> Scores dead in a new bout of South Sudan tribal violence
> 
> Scores dead in a new bout of South Sudan tribal violence - latimes.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> South Sudan as a viable country must be able to protect the country's boundary perimeter and from the internecine violence. Until this occurs the ebb and flow from both of these events will continue to provide instability, death to this fledgling country that lies between a rock and a hard place.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> To be honest Ropey I see a war with Sudan in their future before they can start making any real progress, the Sudanese troops keep raiding villages in South Sudan and making air strikes on them, and than denying it to the media. That shit has to stop.
Click to expand...


You are likely right. I know that it's not easy to defend open borders.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ropey said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ropey said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> South Sudan as a viable country must be able to protect the country's boundary perimeter and from the internecine violence. Until this occurs the ebb and flow from both of these events will continue to provide instability, death to this fledgling country that lies between a rock and a hard place.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To be honest Ropey I see a war with Sudan in their future before they can start making any real progress, the Sudanese troops keep raiding villages in South Sudan and making air strikes on them, and than denying it to the media. That shit has to stop.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> You are likely right. I know that it's not easy to defend open borders.
Click to expand...


The Sudanese are trying to take advantage of a new weaker country, hopefully South Sudan starts getting Military training, arms and cash from the West and Israel to put a stop to this, I know Israel has been investing in South Sudan for a while now.


----------



## High_Gravity

S. Sudan Official Says Sudan Bombs Oil Field








> (JUBA, South Sudan)  An official in South Sudan's Unity State says Sudan's military has carried out an aerial attack near oil fields.
> 
> Unity State Minister of Information Gideon Gatpan said Sudan dropped three bombs Tuesday near oil fields in the town of Bentiu. Gatpan said the extent of any damage wasn't immediately known.
> 
> The attack comes one day after Sudan and South Sudan clashed in the border town of Jau. Sudan announced afterward that Sudan President Omar al-Bashir would not attend a planned meeting with South Sudan President Salva Kiir.
> 
> South Sudan broke away from Sudan last year, but tensions between the longtime foes have remained high.
> 
> Sudan's vice president says a summit planned between the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan has been canceled in the face of new violence along the countries' shared border.
> 
> Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha said late Monday that the south's military targeted Sudan's oil and its army in violence on Monday.
> 
> But South Sudan Minister of Information Barnaba Benjamin Marial said Tuesday that Sudan's military forces "without any provocation" attacked the town of Jau. Jau is a border town claimed by both countries.



Read more: S. Sudan Official Says Sudan Bombs Oil Field - TIME


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## Artevelde

High_Gravity said:


> To be honest Ropey I see a war with Sudan in their future before they can start making any real progress, the Sudanese troops keep raiding villages in South Sudan and making air strikes on them, and than denying it to the media. That shit has to stop.



I am afraid you may be right. It will be difficult for South Sudan to emerge as a viable state.


----------



## High_Gravity

Artevelde said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> To be honest Ropey I see a war with Sudan in their future before they can start making any real progress, the Sudanese troops keep raiding villages in South Sudan and making air strikes on them, and than denying it to the media. That shit has to stop.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am afraid you may be right. It will be difficult for South Sudan to emerge as a viable state.
Click to expand...


Thats because the North doesn't want them to.


----------



## Artevelde

High_Gravity said:


> Artevelde said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> To be honest Ropey I see a war with Sudan in their future before they can start making any real progress, the Sudanese troops keep raiding villages in South Sudan and making air strikes on them, and than denying it to the media. That shit has to stop.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am afraid you may be right. It will be difficult for South Sudan to emerge as a viable state.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Thats because the North doesn't want them to.
Click to expand...


That is certainly part of the problem. But I believe that South Sudan has a lot of internal problems too.


----------



## High_Gravity

Artevelde said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Artevelde said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am afraid you may be right. It will be difficult for South Sudan to emerge as a viable state.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thats because the North doesn't want them to.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That is certainly part of the problem. But I believe that South Sudan has a lot of internal problems too.
Click to expand...


Oh of course, there is alot of internal strife with the tribes there, however South Sudan has the oil and can be quite successful but I think that will take some time, because of their resources they will draw international investment and they won't be ignored like poor African countries like Mali and Chad for example.


----------



## High_Gravity

Clashes Raise Global Worries Over Sudan and South Sudan









> KHARTOUM, Sudan  After a brief, halting step toward reconciliation, military clashes along the long, disputed border between Sudan and newly independent South Sudan have stirred fears of a renewed conflict between the two sides.
> 
> Recent cross-border attacks and continued aerial bombing represent a dangerous escalation of an already tense situation, a statement from the office of the European Unions foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said on Wednesday. The statement followed similar expressions of concern this week by the United States, the United Nations and the African Union.
> 
> On Tuesday, South Sudanese officials accused Sudan of carrying out airstrikes over their territory. Barnaba Benjamin, South Sudans minister of information, said, Sudanese planes flew 100 kilometers into our airspace and bombed oil fields in Unity State.
> 
> In a counterattack, South Sudanese forces claimed control of the oil-producing town of Heglig in Sudan, which the South says is a disputed territory. Sudanese forces, however, said they had retaken Heglig.
> 
> Our armed forces were able to repel the aggressors and prevent them from achieving their goal of occupying the area of Heglig, said a statement read by a Sudanese Army spokesman, Al-Sawarmi Khalid, who rejected the Souths assertion that Heglig was among the disputed areas.
> 
> The back-and-forth came one day after both sides exchanged allegations of carrying out attacks on each others territory.
> 
> In July, South Sudan seceded from Sudan, taking with it nearly 75 percent of the countrys oil production. But the facilities to process, refine and export the oil are north in Sudan. Both sides have failed to agree on oil production fees, or on issues like the demarcation of borders and the status of their citizens living on the other side. Both governments also accuse each other of supporting rebel groups on their soil.
> 
> There appeared to be a breakthrough last week when South Sudans president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, sent a delegation to Khartoum to invite Sudans president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, to South Sudans capital, Juba, for a summit meeting next Tuesday. But the military clashes prompted Sudan to call off the meeting.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/w...h-sudan-clashes-raise-concern.html?ref=africa


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## High_Gravity

S. Sudan Troops Move into Oil-Rich Town








> (JUBA, South Sudan)  Troops from South Sudan moved into an oil-rich border town claimed by Sudan as fighting intensified between the countries over who controls the area, officials said Wednesday. A South Sudan official said the fighting is "spreading all over."
> 
> The two sides fought a civil war that lasted decades, and any increase in sporadic border clashes raises the risk of a return to all-out war.
> 
> Sudanese army spokesman Col. Sawarmy Khaled told the official Radio Omdurman that the South's army attacked the border oil town of Heglig twice in the past 24 hours. Heglig is located about 60 miles to the east of the disputed region of Abyei, whose fate was left unresolved when South Sudan split last year from Sudan.
> 
> South Sudan officials would not confirm whether their troops are in control of the oil fields. "Fierce battles are still going on and the situation has not yet been resolved," said Khaled, promising the Sudanese people their side will be victorious.
> 
> Hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan have grown in recent months, even as the south has said it is trying to avoid a return to war. The two sides never reached a deal to share the oil resources in the region or the exact location of the border, adding to the tensions.
> 
> South Sudan's army  the SPLA  said it moved into Heglig on Tuesday after repelling an attack launched by Sudanese Armed Forces against an SPLA position near the border town of Teshwin.
> 
> SPLA spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said several Sudanese MiG-29 fighter jets bombed the area on Monday and Tuesday. Aguer said several SPLA soldiers were injured in the attack but would not say how many. "The war is widened," said South Sudan Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin. "The battle is raging. It is spreading all over."
> 
> Heglig lies along the ill-defined border between the countries and has been the focal point of nearly two weeks of clashes between the armies. The region is home to oil facilities that account for around half of Sudan's oil production, a critical source of income for the country's flagging economy.




Read more: S. Sudan Troops Move into Oil-Rich Town - TIME


----------



## JStone

High_Gravity said:


> S. Sudan Troops Move into Oil-Rich Town
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (JUBA, South Sudan)  Troops from South Sudan moved into an oil-rich border town claimed by Sudan as fighting intensified between the countries over who controls the area, officials said Wednesday. A South Sudan official said the fighting is "spreading all over."
> 
> The two sides fought a civil war that lasted decades, and any increase in sporadic border clashes raises the risk of a return to all-out war.
> 
> Sudanese army spokesman Col. Sawarmy Khaled told the official Radio Omdurman that the South's army attacked the border oil town of Heglig twice in the past 24 hours. Heglig is located about 60 miles to the east of the disputed region of Abyei, whose fate was left unresolved when South Sudan split last year from Sudan.
> 
> South Sudan officials would not confirm whether their troops are in control of the oil fields. "Fierce battles are still going on and the situation has not yet been resolved," said Khaled, promising the Sudanese people their side will be victorious.
> 
> Hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan have grown in recent months, even as the south has said it is trying to avoid a return to war. The two sides never reached a deal to share the oil resources in the region or the exact location of the border, adding to the tensions.
> 
> South Sudan's army  the SPLA  said it moved into Heglig on Tuesday after repelling an attack launched by Sudanese Armed Forces against an SPLA position near the border town of Teshwin.
> 
> SPLA spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said several Sudanese MiG-29 fighter jets bombed the area on Monday and Tuesday. Aguer said several SPLA soldiers were injured in the attack but would not say how many. "The war is widened," said South Sudan Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin. "The battle is raging. It is spreading all over."
> 
> Heglig lies along the ill-defined border between the countries and has been the focal point of nearly two weeks of clashes between the armies. The region is home to oil facilities that account for around half of Sudan's oil production, a critical source of income for the country's flagging economy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Read more: S. Sudan Troops Move into Oil-Rich Town - TIME
Click to expand...


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxAKFlpdcfc]Applause - YouTube[/ame]


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan-Sudan Clashes Spreading, Officials Say








> KAMPALA, Uganda  Sudan shelled a disputed border town seized by South Sudan, a southern military official said Monday, as clashes spread near the border separating the two nations.
> 
> U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, the current president of the Security Council, said a bombardment in South Sudan also hit a U.N. facility but that no U.N. personnel are thought to be hurt.
> 
> Two Sudanese warplanes dropped "many bombs" Monday on the oil-rich city of Heglig, as long-range artillery targeted southern army positions in the disputed town, said southern army spokesman Col. Philip Aguer. He did not give a casualty figure. He also said Monday that Sudan's air force killed five civilians in aerial attacks Sunday over Heglig.
> 
> Aguer also said that the town of Bentiu in South Sudan's Unity State was hit and that the conflict has spread to several southern states bordering Sudan, including Western Bahr el Ghazal.
> 
> He said the rival armies had not yet engaged in physical fighting this week.
> 
> "Today they bombed our positions in Heglig and the oil installations in Heglig," he said Monday. "We are waiting for them in the killing zone and they are not coming."
> 
> But he said the north's army is now 23 kilometers (some 14 miles) from Heglig, which is claimed by Sudan but was seized last week by South Sudanese forces in fierce fighting that southern officials say killed at least 240 Sudanese soldiers and 19 South Sudanese troops.
> 
> "We know that Sudanese troops are advancing toward Heglig," he said.
> 
> Sudanese officials also claimed Monday to have seized an area sympathetic to South Sudan.
> 
> Aguer said the clashes are a "terrible escalation" of the border conflict that stretches back before South Sudan broke away from Sudan last year.
> 
> Fighting along the north-south border has been near constant over the past two weeks.
> 
> U.S. ambassador Rice, speaking to reporters on Monday, condemned the recent strikes.
> 
> "The fact of today's bombardment, which was deep into South Sudan and hit a U.N. facility, is particularly condemnable and deplorable," she said. "We understand from press reports that there may be a number of casualties surrounding the area."



South Sudan-Sudan Clashes Spreading, Officials Say


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan-South Sudan War: Heglig, Disputed Town, Full Of Dead Bodies, Circling Antonovs 








> HEGLIG, Sudan  The road to Heglig, an oil town that South Sudan and Sudan are fighting over, is lined with discarded furniture, destroyed buses and tanks, and clusters of dead Sudanese soldiers.
> 
> South Sudan's army, known as the SPLA, moved north into Heglig earlier this month, sparking the bloodiest fighting since South Sudan broke off from Sudan last July and became the world's newest nation. A top SPLA official said the south plans to keep moving north, taking territory the south believes it owns. The crisis threatens to widen into all-out war.
> 
> An Associated Press reporter was among the first foreign journalists to reach the disputed border since fighting began two weeks ago.
> 
> As 2nd Lt. Abram Manjil Kony sped north from the South Sudan military base at the Unity State oil field, he pointed out clusters of fallen Sudanese soldiers. Birds stalked the corpses.
> 
> "Jalaba, jalaba," Kony said, meaning "Arab" and, by extension, people from Sudan, which is predominantly Arab while the south is predominantly black.
> 
> The area around Heglig produces about half of Sudan's oil, but the south lays claim to it and says its ownership is in dispute.
> 
> South Sudan army spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said that Sudan's military bombed an oil well outside Heglig on Monday and that it continued to burn Tuesday. He said Sudan forces are trying to open other fronts along the border and that southern forces are on high alert in Western Baah el Ghazal state.
> 
> "The border is still fragile. Tension is very high. The Sudan Armed Forces continue to bomb indiscriminately most of the areas north of Unity State. This is on a daily basis, more than twice a day," Aguer said.
> 
> SPLA soldiers occupy deserted oil facilities and a Sudanese Army base in Heglig that bears signs of a hasty retreat: Military uniforms, blankets and boots litter the ground.



Sudan-South Sudan War: Heglig, Disputed Town, Full Of Dead Bodies, Circling Antonovs


----------



## Katzndogz

Another islamic conflict!


----------



## High_Gravity

Katzndogz said:


> Another islamic conflict!



Well not everyone in South Sudan is Muslim.



> Religions followed by the South Sudanese include traditional indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam.[77] The last census to mention the religion of southerners dates back to 1956 where a majority followed traditional beliefs while the rest were classified as either Christian or Muslim.[78] Scholarly[79][80][81] and U.S. Department of State sources[18] state that a majority of southern Sudanese maintain traditional indigenous (sometimes referred to as Animist) beliefs with those following Christianity in a minority (albeit an influential one), making South Sudan one of the very few countries in the world where most people follow traditional indigenous religion.



South Sudan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## ScienceRocks

Katzndogz said:


> Another islamic conflict!



Well, maybe, but more likely another negro conflict. They love to kill, destroy and cause pain on their own populations. Sicking. Down right evil, I'd say.


----------



## High_Gravity

The War Between the Sudans: No Longer Any Pretense of Peace








> The road to Heglig has no sign or post marking the border between northern and southern Sudan, where Sudan's new war began on Saturday. Instead, there is a sudden trail of rotting corpses leading steadily north. At its head stands a northern Sudanese military base, now captured and looted by the South. Inside, South Sudan's generals plan their next offensive, marking troop positions and movements in the sand with a curtain rod. Outside, South South Sudanese soldiers mix freely with their allies  officially denied, but now in open view  from the Darfuri rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). The men are wary. They glance at the sky to check for approaching northern warplanes, and dig shallow foxholes for protection against bombs. Suddenly a Sudanese jet screams overhead. The dry desert air erupts with the thud of an aerial bombardment. "We are under attack," yells Maj. Gen. Mangar Buong, the South Sudanese commander. And the soldiers scatter for cover.
> 
> Sudan, once again, is back at war. Whether the conflict lasts for days, weeks or years is unknowable. What is clear is that the pretense of peace can no longer be maintained. Sudan's northern regime in Khartoum fought the South for more than half a century in a conflict that cost 2 million lives. The pair have been officially at peace since a 2005 agreement that led, last year, to the separation of north and south into two separate countries. But the border between the two remains disputed at several places and the two sides have fought sporadic skirmishes along their frontier for years.
> 
> In recent months, the most deadly of these have centered in and around Heglig, an oil field officially in the north but claimed by the south. Northern and southern soldiers have exchanged fire, northern bombers have attacked southern territory  and last Saturday southern soldiers invaded and seized Heglig. South Sudan claims it is just defending against northern aggression. But that claim is weakened by the presence of JEM, whose agenda is nothing less than the overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir's regime in Khartoum. Like turbaned cowboys, JEM's fighters swarm up and down the road in roofless pick-up trucks mounted with heavy guns. Arabic is sprawled across their trucks, and they point and pose for photos, exclaiming "Darfur" or "JEM." Officially, South Sudan says it has no ties with the Darfur rebels. In Heglig, that's another pretence that no longer stands up.



Read more: The War Between the Sudans: No Longer Any Pretense of Peace - TIME


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan-South Sudan Conflict: Sudan Continues Assault, Official Says








> NAIROBI, Kenya -- South Sudan's president said its northern neighbor has "declared war" on the world's newest nation, just hours after Sudanese jets dropped eight bombs onto South Sudan on Tuesday.
> 
> President Salva Kiir's comments, made during a trip to China, signal a rise in rhetoric between the rival nations who had spent decades at war with each other. Neither side has officially declared war.
> 
> Sudan and South Sudan have been drawing closer to a full-scale war in recent weeks over the unresolved issues of oil revenues and their disputed border. The violence has drawn alarm and condemnation from the international community, including from U.S. President Barack Obama.
> 
> South Sudan seceded from Sudan last year as a result of a 2005 peace treaty that ended decades of war that killed 2 million people.
> 
> Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir gave a fiery speech last week in which he said there will be no negotiations with the "poisonous insects" who are challenging Sudan's claim to disputed territory near the nations' shared border.
> 
> Kiir, the southern president, arrived in China late Monday for a five-day visit to lobby for economic and diplomatic support. China's energy needs make it deeply vested in the future of the two Sudans, and Beijing is uniquely positioned to exert influence in the conflict given its deep trade ties to the resource-rich south and decades-long diplomatic ties with Sudan's government in the north.
> 
> Kiir told Chinese President Hu Jintao the visit comes at a "a very critical moment for the Republic of South Sudan because our neighbor in Khartoum has declared war on the Republic of South Sudan."
> 
> South Sudan's military spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said that Sudanese Antonovs dropped eight bombs overnight Monday between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. in Panakuac, where he said there had been ground fighting on Monday. Aguer said he could not offer a death toll from the attack because of a poor communication link with the remote area.



Sudan-South Sudan Conflict: Sudan Continues Assault, Official Says


----------



## Artevelde

My feeling is that the West should give aid to South Sudan.


----------



## High_Gravity

Artevelde said:


> My feeling is that the West should give aid to South Sudan.



Yes, I am also in favor of Military training and supplies, cause the Arabs are already doing that with the North.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan-South Sudan Conflict: Sudan Declares State Of Emergency In Border Areas 








> KHARTOUM, Sudan  Sudan declared a state of emergency Sunday in areas bordering South Sudan, giving authorities wide powers of arrest a day after they detained three foreigners in a flashpoint town along the frontier.
> 
> The detentions and state of emergency heightened tensions even further along border between the old rivals, who in the past month came to the brink of an all-out war because of renewed fighting in disputed areas.
> 
> Sudanese officials have accused South Sudan of using foreigner fighters during its assault on the oil-rich Heglig region, which Sudan claims. Southern Sudanese troops briefly captured the area, amid rising international concerns of an escalation in the fighting between the two countries.
> 
> Sudanese army spokesman Col. Sawarmy Khaled claimed on state television late Saturday that four people arrested in the Heglig region, including a Briton, a Norwegian, a South African and a South Sudanese, had military backgrounds. He alleged they were carrying out military activities in Heglig, but did not elaborate. Khaled said the arrests prove its government claims that South Sudan uses foreign fighters.
> 
> But a representative for one of the three said Sunday that they were on a humanitarian mine-clearing mission.
> 
> South Sudan split from Sudan in July last year , but the two countries have yet to agree on border demarcation and divvying up oil revenues and resources.
> 
> South Sudan invaded Heglig earlier this month, saying it belonged to the south. Sudan later retook the town; Sudanese forces say they pushed out the South Sudanese while South Sudan says its troops pulled out to avoid an all-out war. Sudan elevated the tension even further by bombing South Sudan.
> 
> In Oslo, a Norwegian humanitarian organization said Sunday that one of its employees, 50-year-old John Soerboe, was detained while on a five-day mine-clearing mission in southern Sudan with the Briton and South African.



Sudan-South Sudan Conflict: Sudan Declares State Of Emergency In Border Areas


----------



## High_Gravity

U.N. Resolution Threatens Sanctions Against Sudan and South Sudan



> The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution on Wednesday threatening Sudan and South Sudan with sanctions if they failed to halt escalating cross-border fighting that was called a serious threat to international peace. The resolution demanded the nations resume negotiations on fraught issues like oil sharing to try to stop the violence. Russia and China, which have resisted voting against Sudan in the past, joined in the unanimous passage of the resolution.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/w...against-sudan-and-south-sudan.html?ref=africa


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan 'bombing' despite UN sanctions deadline








> The two Sudans have swapped accusations of continuing to fight as a UN deadline has passed for them to cease hostilities or face sanctions.
> 
> South Sudan says Khartoum is continuing to bomb its territory - charges it denies.
> 
> Sudan says that until the South withdraws from territory it has occupied it has not "stopped hostilities".
> 
> Both sides have promised to comply with a UN Security Council resolution.
> 
> The two-day UN ultimatum was passed on Wednesday and expired at 15:00 GMT on Friday, amid fears of an all-out war between the neighbours.
> 
> The Security Council backed an African Union plan called for a written commitment by both governments to stop fighting, and threatened sanctions, such as asset freezes and travel bans, if its terms were not met.
> 
> South Sudan has already said it accepts the terms of the roadmap.
> 
> Under the roadmap, the two countries have until next Tuesday to restart negotiations and three months to reach an agreement.
> 
> Meanwhile, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has confirmed that the Sudanese government has extended the deadline for the return of thousands of South Sudanese refugees to their home country until 20 May - they had been given until 5 May.



BBC News - South Sudan 'bombing' despite UN sanctions deadline


----------



## GHook93

Matthew said:


> Katzndogz said:
> 
> 
> 
> Another islamic conflict!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, maybe, but more likely another negro conflict. They love to kill, destroy and cause pain on their own populations. Sicking. Down right evil, I'd say.
Click to expand...


The government of Northern Sudan is made up of Arabs you ignorant fool. The aggressors here are not Black Christians of Southern Sudan, but the Arab Muslims of the North!


----------



## GHook93

High_Gravity said:


> Sudan-South Sudan Conflict: Sudan Continues Assault, Official Says
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NAIROBI, Kenya -- South Sudan's president said its northern neighbor has "declared war" on the world's newest nation, just hours after Sudanese jets dropped eight bombs onto South Sudan on Tuesday.
> 
> President Salva Kiir's comments, made during a trip to China, signal a rise in rhetoric between the rival nations who had spent decades at war with each other. Neither side has officially declared war.
> 
> Sudan and South Sudan have been drawing closer to a full-scale war in recent weeks over the unresolved issues of oil revenues and their disputed border. The violence has drawn alarm and condemnation from the international community, including from U.S. President Barack Obama.
> 
> South Sudan seceded from Sudan last year as a result of a 2005 peace treaty that ended decades of war that killed 2 million people.
> 
> Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir gave a fiery speech last week in which he said there will be no negotiations with the "poisonous insects" who are challenging Sudan's claim to disputed territory near the nations' shared border.
> 
> Kiir, the southern president, arrived in China late Monday for a five-day visit to lobby for economic and diplomatic support. China's energy needs make it deeply vested in the future of the two Sudans, and Beijing is uniquely positioned to exert influence in the conflict given its deep trade ties to the resource-rich south and decades-long diplomatic ties with Sudan's government in the north.
> 
> Kiir told Chinese President Hu Jintao the visit comes at a "a very critical moment for the Republic of South Sudan because our neighbor in Khartoum has declared war on the Republic of South Sudan."
> 
> South Sudan's military spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said that Sudanese Antonovs dropped eight bombs overnight Monday between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. in Panakuac, where he said there had been ground fighting on Monday. Aguer said he could not offer a death toll from the attack because of a poor communication link with the remote area.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sudan-South Sudan Conflict: Sudan Continues Assault, Official Says
Click to expand...


Yea going to China for help is like the mouse going to the snake to get protection from the cat!


----------



## High_Gravity

GHook93 said:


> Matthew said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Katzndogz said:
> 
> 
> 
> Another islamic conflict!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, maybe, but more likely another negro conflict. They love to kill, destroy and cause pain on their own populations. Sicking. Down right evil, I'd say.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> The government of Northern Sudan is made up of Arabs you ignorant fool. The aggressors here are not Black Christians of Southern Sudan, but the Arab Muslims of the North!
Click to expand...


What pisses me off is that Christians in South Sudan are just defending themselves from the aggression from the North, and the UN is threatening sanctions against both countries, what a crock of shit.


----------



## GHook93

Artevelde said:


> My feeling is that the West should give aid to South Sudan.



I agree how many times do we come to the aid of Muslims getting killed by Muslims in oil rich countries. Maybe it's about time we stop Muslims from killing Christians in oil rich regions!


----------



## High_Gravity

GHook93 said:


> Artevelde said:
> 
> 
> 
> My feeling is that the West should give aid to South Sudan.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I agree how many times do we come to the aid of Muslims getting killed by Muslims in oil rich countries. Maybe it's about time we stop Muslims from killing Christians in oil rich regions!
Click to expand...


We should totally be arming the South, but the UN wants to put sanctions on them.


----------



## GHook93

High_Gravity said:


> GHook93 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Matthew said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well, maybe, but more likely another negro conflict. They love to kill, destroy and cause pain on their own populations. Sicking. Down right evil, I'd say.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The government of Northern Sudan is made up of Arabs you ignorant fool. The aggressors here are not Black Christians of Southern Sudan, but the Arab Muslims of the North!
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> What pisses me off is that Christians in South Sudan are just defending themselves from the aggression from the North, and the UN is threatening sanctions against both countries, what a crock of shit.
Click to expand...


It goes back to the same mentality in schools nowadays. A bully picks on a smaller kid, the smaller kid fights back and both kids get equal suspensions!

The UN has a voting bloc, or Cartel if you will, of Muslim countries voting in favor of any Muslim atrocity no matter what.


----------



## GHook93

High_Gravity said:


> GHook93 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Artevelde said:
> 
> 
> 
> My feeling is that the West should give aid to South Sudan.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I agree how many times do we come to the aid of Muslims getting killed by Muslims in oil rich countries. Maybe it's about time we stop Muslims from killing Christians in oil rich regions!
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> We should totally be arming the South, but the UN wants to put sanctions on them.
Click to expand...


We should be arming the South and setting up a no fly zone! But do it in exchange for oil contracts!


----------



## High_Gravity

GHook93 said:


> High_Gravity said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> GHook93 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I agree how many times do we come to the aid of Muslims getting killed by Muslims in oil rich countries. Maybe it's about time we stop Muslims from killing Christians in oil rich regions!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We should totally be arming the South, but the UN wants to put sanctions on them.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> We should be arming the South and setting up a no fly zone! But do it in exchange for oil contracts!
Click to expand...


Hell yeah, the South has oil so we wouldn't be doing this for nothing, but setting up a no fly zone in the Sudan would be met by outrage from the Muslim countries.


----------



## High_Gravity

Sudan-South Sudan Conflict: Sudan Warplanes Bomb South Sudan, Says Official 









> JUBA, South Sudan -- Sudan resumed its aerial bombardment of South Sudan, violating international calls for a cessation of hostilities between the two countries, a South Sudanese military official said Wednesday.
> 
> Col. Kella Dual Kueth, deputy spokesman for the South Sudan military, said there were attacks Monday and Tuesday in the states of Upper Nile, Unity and Northern Bahr el Ghazal.
> 
> "Automatically it is a violation," Kueth said. "They always attack in the morning and (in the) evening, as usual."
> 
> Kueth did not say how many bombs were dropped or how many people were killed in attacks launched by Sudanese warplanes. He said he was not aware of any attacks Wednesday.
> 
> Khartoum has repeatedly denied it is carrying out a bombing campaign over southern territory, saying instead it is the victim of its southern neighbor's aggression.
> 
> The U.N. Security Council last month approved a resolution threatening nonmilitary sanctions against Sudan and South Sudan if they do not stop escalating violence and return to negotiations.
> 
> The African Union is now trying to help the two Sudans reach a settlement and avoid a return to all-out war. Although Sudan has endorsed the AU'S roadmap to peace, it insists on the right to defend itself militarily.
> 
> Kueth said the latest attacks suggest Sudan is not interested in peace talks with South Sudan.
> 
> "Maybe they want to decide not to go (for peace talks)," he said. "If they are genuine and really serious (about) making this peace process they could have gone before they attack. How could you attack and then you are going to a peace talk?"
> 
> The most recent fighting started last month after South Sudan's brief capture of the oil-rich town of Heglig, which is claimed and has since been reoccupied by Sudan.
> 
> South Sudan gained independence from Sudan last year but has outstanding issues with the north over oil revenue sharing and the border.



Sudan-South Sudan Conflict: Sudan Warplanes Bomb South Sudan, Says Official


----------



## Ruiz

funny how each time the u.s regime wants something (oil rich south Sudan) in a region, violence shows up, the u.s regime intervenes, u.s pupet is set up, and almost always, u.s corporations end up controling the resources shortly there after.


----------



## High_Gravity

Ruiz said:


> funny how each time the u.s regime wants something (oil rich south Sudan) in a region, violence shows up, the u.s regime intervenes, u.s pupet is set up, and almost always, u.s corporations end up controling the resources shortly there after.


----------



## High_Gravity

In 2 Sudans, Familiarity With Path to War








> MAYOM WEL, South Sudan  On a recent blistering afternoon, this village danced in an open field. Women sashayed, hoisting chairs over their heads. Barefoot children scampered. Old men, with skin as dry and cracked as the bark of a savanna tree, jabbed rifles toward the burning sky.
> 
> We are not cowards, we do not fear! cried out the local commissioner, Awet Kiir Awet.
> 
> Contribute food, contribute money, he urged the crowd.
> 
> South Sudans years of conflict were meant to be over when it won its independence from Sudan last July after generations of fighting with the people of the north. But the jubilation quickly faded, and now, not even a year later, after weeks of pointed barbs and border skirmishes, this vast and vastly underdeveloped country is once again mobilizing for war  and asking some of the poorest people on earth to pay for it, with whatever they have at hand.
> 
> The villagers stepped forward, one after another, volunteering packs of tobacco, sacks of flour, goats, peanuts and $2 in wrinkled bills  not small change here. At the same time, scores of young men from around the area enlisted to be infantrymen, eager to rush to the front.
> 
> Sudan and South Sudan have yet to resolve a number of prickly and vital issues, not least of which is how to demarcate a border of more than 1,000 miles and share billions of dollars of oil revenue. Border clashes escalated in late March, killing hundreds, and strategic oil fields have switched hands.
> 
> The United States, the African Union and the United Nations have pushed both sides to stop fighting, saying the last thing this region needs is another major conflict. Sudan and South Sudan have agreed in principle in recent days to return to the negotiating table, though officials from the South say Sudan has continued to bomb areas along the border. Most South Sudanese, including top officials, are now convinced that more fighting is not a question of if, but when.
> 
> Khartoum will definitely be attacking us, said South Sudans vice president, Riek Machar, who is leading the nationwide mobilization effort. This is our history, this is our inbuilt way of coping with problems.
> 
> In Juba, South Sudans capital, government representatives move from hotel to hotel, compelling managers to donate 1,000 pounds each  about $370  or essentials like charcoal and beans. In Rumbek, about 100 miles north, more than 850 young men signed up to join the army. In Warrap, a border state neighboring the contested region of Abyei, more than 3,000 young men have enlisted.
> 
> Anything from cooking oil to combatants is welcome.
> 
> President Salva Kiir likes to portray his country as an underdog, recently saying that South Sudan was like a child who has two teeth, up and down, whose teeth will grow and bite that man referring to his former  and possibly future nemesis  Sudans president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
> 
> Both sides, it seems, are gearing up for a major conflict. In Khartoum, Sudans capital, the government mandated that part of civil servants salaries be diverted toward the military  as has the South. And just like the South, Khartoum is trying to spur a grass-roots war effort, asking Sudanese citizens to donate food, goods and other valuables for the defense of the nation.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/w...r-a-war-both-thought-was-over.html?ref=africa


----------



## High_Gravity

South Sudan Independence Anniversary: Youngest Nation In The World Celebrates First Birthday








> Thousands of South Sudanese came out on Sunday to celebrate the nation's first anniversary as an independent country. "We have fought for our right to be counted among the community of the free nations and we have earned it," South Sudanese President Salva Kiir told the crowd, according to AFP.
> 
> On July 8, 2011, the Republic of South Sudan broke away from Sudan, becoming the world's newest nation. The country's independence followed decades of war that claimed the lives of millions.
> 
> Yet as the military held a parade and dancers treated the crowds to traditional performances, South Sudan's president offered a stark reminder of the persistent insecurity in the country. "Since our independence, Khartoum has continuously violated our sovereignty through aerial bombardments and ground incursions," President Salva Kiir said, according to the AP. South Sudan and its northern neighbor Sudan remain locked in a conflict over their shared border and oil revenues.
> 
> The Associated Press explains that South Sudan also is plagued by ethnic clashes and skyrocketing inflation.



South Sudan Independence Anniversary: Youngest Nation In The World Celebrates First Birthday (PHOTOS)


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## waltky

Sudan back in the news again...

*South Sudan army commits shocking abuses in east: Amnesty*
_October 3, 2012 - South Sudan's security forces are shooting, torturing and raping civilians in the country's east, rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday, urging the government and United Nations to do more to stop the abuses._


> The army (SPLA) did not respond to numerous phone calls but has previously played down accusations its soldiers have attacked civilians during a disarmament campaign in Jonglei state, saying there have only been isolated violations.  Soldiers and police have been fanning out across Jonglei - home to a huge, largely unexplored oil field - to try and collect thousands of weapons left over from decades of civil war that are now fuelling tribal clashes and a growing rebellion.  The impoverished country, which declared independence from Sudan in July 2011 under a peace agreement, is still struggling to contain ethnic and political tensions across its vast territory.
> 
> Amnesty said it had evidence civilians, including children as young as 18 months, had been tortured and abused during the disarmament campaign.  Security forces had looted property and destroyed crops, the group said, adding it had received "credible reports of rape and attempted rape by SPLA forces".  "Far from bringing security to the region, the SPLA and the police auxiliary forces have committed shocking human rights violations and the authorities are doing very little to stop the abuse," Amnesty International's Africa Director, Audrey Gaughran, said in the statement.
> 
> The group said the United Nations mission in the country should do more to protect civilians and "(deploy) peacekeepers in areas where there is significant potential for violations by the SPLA".  Insurgents led by former theology student David Yau Yau have clashed with the army in Jonglei in recent weeks, forcing aid agencies to evacuate international staff from the area.
> 
> Yau Yau has been fighting the government since 2010, accusing it of corruption. An announcement on a short-wave radio station linked to his group recently said he was also fighting to defend civilians against army abuses carried out during the disarmament push.  On Sunday, the SPLA repelled a attack by Yau Yau's forces on the town of Likuangole, killing 31 rebels, Pibor county commissioner Joshua Konyi told Reuters by telephone.  There was no immediate comment from Yau Yau's forces.  Insecurity in Jonglei has already forced medical aid charity MÃ©decins Sans FrontiÃ¨res (MSF) to suspend work in the towns of Likuangole and Gumuruk over the last six weeks.
> 
> Source



See also:

*Sudan: Hashaba Attacks - Almost 300 Victims*
_4 October 2012  According to a survivor, between 250 and 300 people got killed or injured following last week's attacks in Hashaba, North Darfur._


> The survivor Ishaaq Adduma Adam Ishaaq, who got seriously injured, told Radio Dabanga he witnessed the burial of 168 victims, from Friday, 28 September until Tuesday, 2 October.  He added that there are still tens of bodies lying in the vicinity of the battlefield that have not yet been buried.  Ishaaq, who previously owned a water supply tank in the area, said that hundreds of people who fled Hashaba are still wondering around valleys, mountains and deserts.  He suggested the people who fled Hashaba, hiding mostly around Jaira, Anka, Amorai, Guadara, Baashim and Umm Sidr, could die soon due to thirst or starvation.
> 
> Four-day attacks
> 
> The source also told Radio Dabanga that at about 10:45am on Tuesday, gunmen coming from several different directions attacked the area. They were riding horses, camels and Land Cruisers, he added.  According to Ishaaq, just about 15 minutes after the gunmen attack, an Antonov plane bombed the area.  He said these attacks lasted four days, from Tuesday to Friday.
> 
> Dozens killed
> 
> Ishaaq also reported that gunmen attacked three different markets on Tuesday. He saw at least 25 people being killed, at least 10 who got injured and several other seeking refugee inside wells.  According to the source, the markets in Kutum, El-Fasher and Zanga Zanga (in Hashaba area) were attacked and looted, explaining he witnessed everything from Kutum.  Ishaaq said some of the fatal victims are: Idriss Abbeker and his son, the Imam of the mosque, the Sheikh of the Kutum market Haji Ibrahim (70 years old), Abdul Latif Musa Ishaaq, Magdah, Mariam, and Fatima Ishaaq, from El Fasher.
> 
> In addition, Fathiya Azzah, a food seller, got wounded.  Radio Dabanga was informed that billions of Sudanese pounds (SDG) were stolen during the looting. The perpetrators stole 22 million SDG from Mohammed Hussein and 300 million SDG from another trader, Ishaaq pointed out.  Ishaaq pointed out that Hashaba is a known mining area and that there are between three to four thousand people currently working in its gold mines.
> 
> allAfrica.com: Sudan: Hashaba Attacks - Almost 300 Victims


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## ScienceRocks

Blacks love to commit abuses against their own fucking people. Disgusting people.

They allow their own people to starve and do the most disgusting acts of abuse to their own kind.


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## High_Gravity

Matthew said:


> Blacks love to commit abuses against their own fucking people. Disgusting people.
> 
> They allow their own people to starve and do the most disgusting acts of abuse to their own kind.



Of course white people never kill their own kind or harm each other right?  shut the fuck up with that shit, everyone knows Africa is fucked up.


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## LAfrique

*South Sudan Threatening Unregistered Gun Owners* - allAfrica.com: South Sudan Interior Minister Urges the Public to Register Weapons or Face the Law


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