Sudan accuses Uganda of supplying arms to southern rebels: report

KHARTOUM, Oct 11 (AFP) — Sudan has accused Uganda of supplying the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) with heavy weaponry to step up the pressure on Khartoum which is already bogged down with the crisis in Darfur, a media report said Monday.

The semi-governmental Sudanese Media Center quoted officials as charging that the government of Uganda had shipped weapons across the border and into SPLA-controlled areas in southern Sudan last week.

“Kampala has provided these weapons so that the SPLA could (launch) an attack against the Sudanese army” which would coincide with an offensive by the two main rebels groups in the western Darfur provinces, the report said.

There was no official confirmation but the report comes as the latest in years of mutual accusations by Khartoum and Kampala that each supports and arms the other’s opposition groups.

Khartoum has been repeatedly accused of assisting the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel Ugandan organisation which has been waging for almost two decades a brutal war from northern Uganda and sanctuaries in southern Sudan.

The Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army kicked off a fresh round of talks in Kenya four days ago in a bid to end their 21-year-old conflict, Africa’s longest-running civil war.