South Sudan Flashpoint Town of Pibor Under Government Control
AFP) –
JUBA — South Sudan’s army is in “full control” of a flashpoint town, after thousands of villagers fled into the bush to escape a marauding militia army from a rival tribe, officials said Tuesday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjjPEESWmXc&feature=endscreen&NR=1
A column of some 6,000 armed youths from the Lou Nuer tribe marched on the remote town of Pibor in troubled Jonglei state, home to the rival Murle people, who they blame for cattle raiding and have vowed to exterminate.
“Pibor is under the full control of the government, and the Lou Nuer have been ordered to return to their homes, and they are starting to do so,” Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said.
Gunmen burned thatched huts and looted a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in the worst flare-up in a dispute that has left more than 1,000 dead in recent months and threatened to destabilise the world’s newest country.
The government and the United Nations — which has warned the violence could lead to a “major tragedy” — were beefing up their forces in the area.
Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, said “probably well over twenty thousand” people had fled into the bush.
Ethnic violence, cattle raids and reprisal attacks in the vast eastern state left over 1,100 people dead and forced some 63,000 from their homes last year, according to UN reports based on local authorities and assessment teams.
Tit-for-tat cattle raiding is common in a grossly underdeveloped region awash with guns and left in ruins by decades of war with northern Sudanese forces, who fuelled conflict by backing proxy militia forces across the south.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjjPEESWmXc&feature=endscreen&NR=1
New South Sudan rebels vow to attack Juba within a month
January 3, 2012 (LONDON) – South Sudan’s newest rebel movement has told Sudan Tribune that it plans attack the capital Juba within the month and denies it is backed by Khartoum.
- The distance between Renk, where the new rebels say they are based and South Sudan’s capital Juba is around 800km (Google Maps)
The leader of the South Sudan People Liberation Movement/Army (SSPLM/A), Tong Lual Ayat, claims to have a force of 5,000 soldiers and plans to double that figure with new recruits and defections from the South Sudanese military (SPLA).
Ayat, a former member of South Sudan’s ruling party – the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) – said that he had begun his rebellion because of the corrupt and ineffective way the country is being governed by President Salva Kiir.
South Sudan became independent in July 2011 under Kiir’s leadership, as part of a 2005 peace deal with north Sudan.
Like other rebellions in South Sudan the new group state corruption, bad governance and lack of human rights and freedoms as some of the reasons for their insurgency.
But in a departure from the aims of other rebels the SSPLM/A declared in its manifesto at the end of December that it wanted to South Sudan to revert being governed by Khartoum under a confederation.
However, following the “negative reactions” to the announcement the nascent movement scrapped the idea just days later.
The Unity and Jonglei state-based South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA), the country’s most active rebel group, shortly after the original announcement said that they opposed confederation.
“The people of South Sudan voted overwhelmingly for separation and nobody can reverse that. The democratic choice of the people of South Sudan has to be respected” the SSLA’s Bapiny Monytuil told Sudan Tribune.
The SSLA warned Ayat that if he did not change his manifesto other southern rebels would not cooperate with him.
The hastily dropped proposal, Ayat said, was for the two Sudan’s to create a European or East African Community type system.
Ayat said that because of these concerns the article had been dropped and replaced with a statement calling for “regime change in Juba.”
“Any inconvenience caused by this article is sincerely regretted”, the group said in a 1 January press release.
In 2009 Ayat left the ruling SPLM and formed the United Democratic Party (UDP) but claims he was arrested for starting the new party and subsequently his party did not join the government after the 2010 elections.
In a email to Sudan Tribune on 1 January, Ayat said that South Sudanese were fed up with the current government and the country needed an alternative. The SSPLM/A’s planned attack on Juba will be called “Rescue South Sudan from Oppressors”, he said.
Ayat says that he has no connection with Khartoum and is trying to form a coalition with other rebel and opposition groups in South Sudan as well as encourage defections from the army.
Juba and Khartoum have routinely accused each other of backing the rebel groups in each others territory.
The new rebels claim to be based in Renk in Upper Nile state near the border with north Sudan.
Renk and Juba are at other ends of the country, with Juba close to the border with Uganda. The SSPLM/A would have to travel around 800km through difficult terrain to reach Juba.
Similar warnings, given by other rebel groups that they were going imminently attack and take control of major towns in South Sudan have, so far, not transpired.
(ST)
South Sudan flashpoint town under government control
AFP
JUBA — South Sudan’s army is in “full control” of a flashpoint town, after thousands of villagers fled into the bush to escape a marauding militia army from a rival tribe, officials said Tuesday. A column of some 6000 armed youths from the Lou Nuer …
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