S. Sudan leader insists troops to occupy oil area, threatens attack

JUBA, Thursday

South Sudan President Salva Kiir has said his troops will not withdraw from the contested oil-rich border town of Heglig, which they took days ago in fresh clashes with the Sudan Armed Forces.

Mr Kiir’s remark comes amidst UN calls for immediate withdrawal.

He said Khartoum took it as a military weakness when he ordered the troops to withdraw after overrunning Heglig last month.

“It was not. But we always believe that everything can be resolved by peaceful means,” Mr Kiir stressed.

“This time, I said that I will not order the forces to withdraw,” Mr Kiir said, attracting applause from the packed house.

He said the decision is “not because we are interested in war but we want to resolve this problem once and for all.”

UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon in a phone call on Wednesday urged President Kiir to order his forces to withdraw immediately.

“The UN Secretary General gave me an order that I am ordering you to immediately withdraw from Heglig. I said I am not under your command,” President Kiir said, attracting applause.

Mr Kiir accused the UN and the international community of being unfair in handling the matters between the two former foes.

“Whatever aerial bombardments are being conducted in South Sudan are violation of our sovereignty. When we report them to the international community, they don’t take it as something that concerns them,” Mr Kiir said, arguing that whenever Juba takes a step in self-defence, it becomes a matter of international concern.

“You are not doing justice to all of us,” Mr Kiir said.

“You want to see justice done to Sudan and not South Sudan and this is unfair,” he said.

Mr Kiir said the Sudan troops have not withdrawn from Abyei despite international calls to do so.

He said that if Bashir does not move out his forces out of Abyei, “we are going to reconsider our position and we are going back to Abyei.”

Mr Kiir that in the interest of peace, the international community should push Sudan to agree to dialogue so as to demarcate borders, resolve the status of Abyei and reach a fair agreement on transit fees.

Meanwhile, Sudanese war planes dropped five bombs at dawn targeting a strategic bridge on the edge of Bentiu, the capital of the oil-producing Unity border state and some 60 kilometres from the frontier where rival armies are fighting.

“The population is staying in their places, when the planes come they lie down,” said Gideon Gatpan, Unity state information minister. One person was killed in the attack, the latest in a string of air strikes in the state.

The last time Khartoum bombed Southern towns was during the 1983-2005 civil war in which some two million people died, paving the way for the splitting of Africa’s largest nation into two.

The unrest has prompted Khartoum to pull out of AU-led crisis talks aimed at resolving the protracted dispute with Juba over oil, border demarcation, contested areas and citizenship issues.

Khartoum has vowed to react with “all means” against a three-pronged attack it said South Sudanese forces had launched against Sudan’s South Kordofan state, including the Heglig oil field, which produces around half of the north’s crude.

Khartoum’s official SUNA news agency warned of “destruction” in South Sudan.

Parliaments in both countries on Wednesday urged their respective citizens to take up defences, a call repeated by Kiir Thursday.

“If the youth have guns, let them keep these guns... when we call them back those who do not have (guns), they will be supplied.”

The international community, including the African Union, United Nations, the United States and China, has called for restraint and voiced deep concern at the escalation of violence.

Ban urged Kiir to meet with Bashir, while the US State Department urged both sides to end “all hostilities”.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said South Sudan’s capture of Heglig was “completely unacceptable. So is continued aerial bombardment of South Sudanese territory by the Sudan Armed Forces.”

Hundreds of thousands of citizens of each nation living in the territory of the other country are also facing uncertain futures after a deadline requiring them to formalise their status expired at the weekend.

Bombing

Meanwhile, Sudan intensified aerial bombardments on Thursday, dropping four rounds of bombs in Bentiu, the capital for Unity state.

Unity state Information minister Gideon Gatpan said a SAF warplane hovered over the area in the morning and droped the bombs on Rubkona County.

He said the target was oilfields. The army spokesman Col Philip Aguer confirmed the bombing, accusing Sudan of provoking a meaningless fighting.