Sudan complains to UNSC against South Sudan gov’t
KHARTOUM, Aug. 30 (Xinhua)
Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti has sent a message of complaint to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), accusing the South Sudan government of violating the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the official SUNA news agency reported Tuesday.
“I’m committed to send you a complaint concerning violations by South Sudan’s government during the past period. The Republic of South Sudan has adopted hostile stances towards the mother state ( the Republic of Sudan), starting from the negative signals embodied in the speech of Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of South Sudan, on the day South Sudan was declared independent,” SUNA quoted Karti as saying in the message to the UNSC chairman.
The South Sudan president’s “negative signals” included his reiteration to support the Darfur rebel movements, together with his remarks about the South Kordofan and Blue Nile areas, which belong to north Sudan, Karti said.
South Sudan has hosted the Darfur armed movements and provided them with shelter, training and arms, and it is still supporting them, the foreign minister said.
The South Sudan government also violated the CPA when its forces attacked the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) soldiers who were part of the Joint Integrated Units escorted by the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) troops, he said.
“The South Sudan government has gone beyond that when, on Aug. 9, it patronized a conference in Kauda in South Kordofan that brought together representatives from the Darfur rebel movements in addition to commanders of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)/northern sector to coordinate joint military action to topple the Sudan government,” he said.
In the meantime, the Sudanese minister reiterated commitment of the Republic of Sudan and its keenness to achieve a political settlement and stability, saying that the government’s commitment to peace was represented in its signing and implementation of the CPA, including its recognition of the referendum results as well as of the newly-born South Sudan state.
Despite the violations by the government of South Sudan and its continuing support of the Darfur rebel movements to undermine security in Sudan, the Sudanese government has initiated a unilateral ceasefire for two weeks, Karti said, adding that the South Sudan government was still instigating the SPLM/northern sector to launch a war in South Kordofan.
The minister urged the UNSC to use its powers and means to push the government of South Sudan to commit to the agreements signed between the two countries and to immediately stop training, supporting and instigating the armed groups, whether in South Kordofan or Darfur.
He also called on the UNSC to urge the rebel groups in Darfur and South Kordofan to respond to the ceasefire declared by the government and sit directly with it to reach a peaceful solution through dialogue and negotiations.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-08/30/c_131084951.htm
Sudan Accuses South Sudan of Inciting Violence
By JOSH KRON
KAMPALA, Uganda — The Sudanese government has filed a complaint with the Security Council that South Sudan, its newly independent neighbor and former territory, is inciting violence and instability in the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan, a volatile border area where United Nations officials warn that war crimes may have been committed in recent months.
A spokesman for the Sudanese government in Khartoum said Tuesday that South Sudan was supporting Nuban rebels with weapons and logistical support.
“We have documented proof” that the rebels receive aid and instructions from the south, said the spokesman, Rabie A. Atti. “All of them are one group, and they are moving as one group,” Mr. Atti added. “Soldiers, weapons, tanks, everything.”
Many people in the Nuba Mountains fought alongside the southern Sudanese through decades of civil war in Sudan, but while the south gained independence last month, the Nuba Mountains remained Sudanese territory, and an insurrection has been building there in recent months.
With the south’s independence, the conflict has taken on an international dimension.
“This threatening is coming from a foreign country, and this should be handled by the Security Council,” Mr. Atti said.
A United Nations official in New York confirmed that it had received a letter on Monday evening from the Sudanese government, written in Arabic, accusing both the South Sudanese government and the Sudanese wing of its governing party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or S.P.L.M., of violating the peace agreement.
Neither South Sudan’s minister of information nor its army spokesman could be reached for comment.
The northern government has long accused South Sudan of propping up the Nuban rebels, who, like the southerners, are non-Arabs and have suffered discrimination under the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.
The liberation movement maintains a wing in the north, and Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, a senior Nuban politician, has been known to refer to President Salva Kiir of South Sudan as “Chairman Salva.”
Human-rights groups and some United Nations officials have accused the northern government of indiscriminate bombings and widespread human-rights abuses in the Nuba Mountains this summer. Some fear that the mountains could become the next Darfur, another conflict-racked region of Sudan, where brutal repression has led to the indictment of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan by the International Criminal Court.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 31, 2011, on page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Former Territory Inciting Violence at Border, Sudan Tells the U.N..
(AFP) – 3 hours ago
KHARTOUM — Sudan’s government has lodged a complaint at the UN Security Council against South Sudan, accusing it of fomenting unrest in its northern neighbour, an official announced on Tuesday.
The complaint also accused South Sudan, which obtained its independence in July, of “supporting rebels” against the Khartoum government, foreign ministry spokesman Al-Obeid Merwah said in a statement.
“Our representative to the UN delivered to the president of the Security Council a complaint against the government of South Sudan,” he said.
“The government of South Sudan is still causing problems in Sudan by supporting, training and encouraging rebel movements in South Kordofan and Darfur,” Merwah said.
South Kordofan remained under Khartoum’s northern administration when South Sudan became independent in July, but clashes have pitted Nuba rebels once allied to southern rebels against the Sudanese army.
In the Darfur region of western Sudan, bordering South Sudan, some rebel groups maintain links with the SPLM, the ruling party in the south.
South Kordofan was a battleground during the north-south civil war from 1983 to 2005, and Khartoum is trying to reassert its authority within its borders redrawn following the formal independence of South Sudan on July 9.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday that the Sudanese armed forces have launched deadly air raids on civilians in rebel-held areas of the Nuba Mountains that may amount to war crimes.
The rights groups said that during a week-long visit, their researchers saw almost daily bombing raids by government aircraft on villages and farmland.
They said the researchers had investigated a total of 13 air strikes in the Kauda, Delami and Kurchi areas which had killed at least 26 civilians and wounded more than 45 since mid-June.
No evident military targets were visible near any of the air strike locations the researchers visited, they said.
“The relentless bombing campaign is killing and maiming civilian men, women and children, displacing tens of thousands, putting them in desperate need of aid and preventing entire communities from planting crops and feeding their children,” said HRW’s Africa director Daniel Bekele.
Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera said: “The international community, and particularly the UN Security Council, must stop looking the other way and act to address the situation.
“Indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas and restrictions on humanitarian aid could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The research team completed its South Kordofan visit before the announcement by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on August 23 of a unilateral two-week ceasefire by government forces.
But the rights watchdogs said that reports from on the ground suggested that the government was continuing to bomb civilian areas.
In Darfur, at least 300,000 people have been killed and 1.9 million people have fled their homes since the Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 between non-Arab rebels and the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime, the United Nations says.
Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.
Following a relative lull, there have been sporadic clashes there since December between rebel groups and government forces that have forced more than 70,000 people to flee their homes.
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
Sudan sends complaint against South to UN Council
By REUTERS
08/30/2011 14:27
KHARTOUM – Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it had submitted an official complaint to the United Nations Security Council, accusing South Sudan of causing instability in South Kordofan state, the latest sign of growing tension between the two nations.
“The complaint accuses South Sudan of causing instability, disrupting peace and offering support to rebel groups in the South Kordofan state,” the spokesman told Reuters. —
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=235985
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