Alan Boswel of McClatchy vs the Government of South Sudan

August 10, 2012 (NAIROBI) – A prominent U.S. media house and an international NGO on Friday strongly criticized South Sudan information minister, Baranaba Benjamin Marial, for labeling the former’s Africa correspondent as a paid agent of rival Sudan, demanding a retraction that the official refused to give but fell short of directly repeating the accusation. Marial made the serious charge while responding, in an interview carried by Sudan Radio Service on August 6, to a report in which Alan Boswell, who is the Africa correspondent of the California-based McClatchy Newspaper, quoted a former U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity as revealing that South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, had sent “an apology letter” to his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama explaining why he twice denied, during a meeting they held in December 2011 and a follow-up phone call weeks later, any knowledge of Juba’s support to the Sudanese rebel group the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N). Boswell’s report, which was published by McClatchy on 2 August, one day ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Juba, cited “multiple sources with knowledge of the events” as indicating that Kiir’s denial angered the White House which had “strong intelligence” linking South Sudan’s army known as SPLA to the SPLM-N which fought under its insignia during the second Sudanese civil war which ended in 2005 with a peace deal that paved the way for South Sudan secession in July last year.

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article43535