Sacked South Sudanese block Khartoum road, hurl rocks
Violent demo by ex-Sudanese military from South
AFP – Sacked South Sudanese members of the Sudanese military pelted motorists and police with stones and blocked traffic on Wednesday to protest delays in their severance pay, witnesses said.
About 100 protesters gathered on Africa Road, a major artery in the Sudanese capital, shouting “We want our rights!”
Witnesses said the demonstrators were seeking compensation and marched to the multi-lane thoroughfare from a nearby office of theSudan Armed Forces.
Stones thrown by the demonstrators shattered windows of some passing cars, an AFP reporter witnessed.
Riot police wielding batons dispersed the protesters, and there were no apparent arrests or injuries.
The Khartoum government fired ethnic southern members of its civil service last year prior to the July separation of South Sudan, which voted overwhelmingly for independence after decades of conflict with the north that left some two million people dead.
Up to 700,000 ethnic southerners are estimated to remain in Sudan ahead of an April deadline for them to either go south or normalise their status with the Khartoum authorities.
On Sunday, Khartoum and Juba agreed to cooperate in the transfer of ethnic southerners to the new nation, the official SUNA news agency said.
Khartoum’s Social Welfare Minister, Amira al-Fadel Mohamed, signed a memorandum of understanding on the issue with South Sudan’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Joseph Lual Achwel, SUNA said, adding the agreement covers road, air and river transport.
Despite the deal, the International Organization for Migration and the UN have said it is logistically impossible for all southerners in Sudan to either move south or obtain official status in the north before the April 8 deadline.
http://news.yahoo.com/violent-demo-ex-sudanese-military-south-130424353.html
Sacked South Sudanese block Khartoum road, hurl rocks
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – South Sudanese fired from their government jobs in neighbouring Sudan blocked a major road in Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Wednesday, hurling rocks at passing cars and demanding severance benefits, witnesses said.
Sudan has ruled out dual nationality for southerners after South Sudan seceded in July under a 2005 peace deal, throwing into legal uncertainty hundreds of thousands of people who have lived in the north for decades.
Khartoum has also dismissed ethnic southerners working for the government and about 100 people who lost their jobs gathered on a main road running past Khartoum’s airport to demand they receive post-service pay, witnesses said.
“We want our rights,” the protesters chanted. Sudanese riot police dispersed the demonstrators and spread out in the area to protect nearby facilities.
Sudan has avoided the mass protest movements that ousted leaders in neighbouring Egypt and in Tunisia, but small demonstrations have broken out over rising food prices and other issues over the past year.
South Sudan took about three quarters of the country’s oil output with it when it seceded, hitting a vital source of foreign currency and fuelling inflation in the northern country.
The two sides are now embroiled in a row over how much South Sudan should pay to export oil using pipelines and facilities in the north. South Sudan shut down its oil output last month after Khartoum started seizing some crude to make up for what it called unpaid fees.
The status of southerners in Sudan is also contentious. Sudan has imposed an April deadline for an estimated 500,000 South Sudanese to choose whether they will return home or regularise their stay in Sudan as foreigners.
The deadline “will represent a massive logistical challenge to both governments and to the international community”, the International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday.
Some 2 million people died in the civil war between north and south, fought over ideology, ethnicity, religion and oil.
South Sudan oil row with Khartoum hurting China ties
By Ulf Laessing and Hereward Holland
JUBA Feb 15 (Reuters) – South Sudan on Wednesday said its relations with China are being strained by accusations that Chinese oil firms may have cooperated with Sudan in seizing a portion of its oil in a row over transit payments.
South Sudan took three-quarters of Sudan’s oil when it became independent in July under a peace deal with Khartoum that ended decades of civil war.
The landlocked nation needs to export its crude through Sudanese pipelines and the Red Sea port of Port Sudan but both sides have failed to agree on a transit fee.
Last month South Sudan shut down its entire oil production of 350,000 barrels a day after Khartoum started seizing some of its oil in lieu of fees it says are unpaid. Juba accuses Khartoum of seizing 6 million barrels since December.
Juba’s top negotiator Pagan Amum accused unspecified Chinese firms of having played a role in helping Khartoum to seize its oil.
“Our relations with China are beginning but they are of course having difficulties now because of the role of some Chinese companies or individuals covering up some of this stealing,” he told reporters in Juba.
State oil firms from China, India and Malaysia own majority shares in the three consortiums extracting oil in South Sudan. China is the biggest buyer of South Sudanese oil and has built the most oil facilities in both countries.
Amum said oil firms operating in Unity state had helped to block export of the entire output in December and in January.
“We will make them pay the cost or else they are out of the country,” he said, without naming the firms.
Amum also said the Sudanese oil ministry had ordered Malaysian-Chinese pipeline operator Petrodar this week to switch on a tie-in pipeline to divert 120,000 bpd of southern oil to Sudan’s refineries.
He handed out a letter dated Feb. 13, allegedly from Petrodar, informing South Sudan that Sudan had commissioned the tie-in line to transfer crude “unilaterally and by force.”
There was no immediate response from China or Sudan.
Oil talks sponsored by the African Union in Ethiopia will resume on Feb. 23, Amum said, dashing hopes of a quick deal.
“They are stealing and robbing our oil,” he said.
Juba will not sign any deal with Sudan without guarantees by China, India and Malaysia that no more oil seizures by Sudan will be possible in the future, he said.
South Sudan wants Khartoum to release all vessels held at Port Sudan and repay the value of the seized oil, he added. (Reporting by Ulf Laessing and Hereward Holland; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5E8DF9M620120215?sp=true
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