Sudan says Ethiopian rebels cause tension on joint border
April 10, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan has acknowledge for the first time security tensions on the border with Ethiopia over activities by the Ethiopian rebels which it said is receiving training in neighbouring Eritrea that has a long-standing border dispute with Ethiopia.
The governor of Gadharif State, eastern Sudan, Abdelrahman al-Khadir, admitted that the Ethiopian rebels is active on the border. He said the opposition received its training in Eritrea and crossed Sudanese territory to carry out forays in Ethiopia. This is distinct from activities by the highway robbers known as Al-Shafta gangs who menace both Sudanese inhabitants and foreigners in the region, the London based Asharq al-Awsat reported on Tuesday.
Al-Khadhir denied that there was any such thing as a “Lafshaqah” area problem between farmers in the two countries. “Actually there is colonization by Ethiopian farmers in the Sudanese territories,” he said, adding that the Lafshaqah problem has become a national border problem that is to be solved within the federal levels of the Sudanese and Ethiopian governments.
Sudanese officials are now accusing Ethiopia of escalating the crisis after having continued for a long time to deny the presence of Ethiopian opposition on its territory and to play down the border problem.
Al-Khadir accused the Ethiopian government of having recently escalated the situation in the area by putting into force a new customs law, something which prompted Sudanese traders to boycott Ethiopian goods. “But these are manageable administrative problems,” he told Asharq al-Awsat.
Meanwhile Hassan Abdallah al-Turabi, the secretary-general of the opposition Popular Congress Party who is currently visiting al-Gadarif, incited Sudanese farmers on the borders with Ethiopia to “seize the lands usurped from them by Ethiopian farmers. “A bad deed warrants an equally bad deed,” he said at a seminar in the town of al-Gadharif.
There has been a repressed crisis in relations between Sudan and Ethiopia because of the conflict over the border territories opposite al-Gadharif. Sudanese farmers are attacked by their Ethiopian counterparts from time to time and also by Ethiopian highwaymen known as “Al-Shaftah”.
A joint committee has been working for years to demarcate the borders but observers believe its work is moving an excruciatingly slow pace that is further hampered by skirmishes between farmers.
Sudan has been avoiding an escalation despite complaints by its farmers. During a recent visit to the Blue Nile State, on the border with Ethiopia, President al-Bashir called for “preservation” of relations between the two countries.
(ST)