South Sudan SSUDA says SPLA commits atrocities in Nuerland

August 12, 2006 — Reports from the SSDF field commands are that SPLM/A has launched pre-emptive attacks on innocent civilian population around Gil, Door and Kurwai in Central Nuer region of Fangak. The reports indicated women, children and the elderly ware killed and many of them chased into the Zaref River feared either drawn or eaten by crocodiles. Cattle, sheep, goats, and grains looted by the maundering SPLA forces. SSUDA/SSDF leadership cannot condone these acts terrorism against innocent population. It also reported that girls and women rapped. The SSDF Field Commander Brigadier-General Daniel Gatwich reported that the SPLA forces repulsed by SSDF forces. They sustained heavy causalities. More SSDF reinforcement has arrived and is continuing to chase the attackers. There is no doubt that SPLM/A is a terrorist organization that lacks dignity and respect for human life. Because of these unwarranted malicious attacks against innocent civilians, SSDF military declares a state of war between the SSDF and SPLA forces throughout Sudan.

Due to these unforeseen incumbent politico-military circumstances superimposed by the current SPLM/A terrorist aggression, SSDF Military Field Command calls on all NGOs workers, and UN personnel throughout South Sudan to provide urgently needed emergency humanitarian relief assistance to the war affected areas throughout South Sudan. SSUDA/SSDF has tolerated the SPLA war mongering and terrorism against the civilian population for the past 18 months. As of today’s date, these acts of terror will not continue.

The Chief of SSDF Military Operations, hereby ordered all SSDF military personnel to report for duty. The state of war now exists between the SSDF and the SPLA forces throughout South Sudan. We inform the President of the Republic of Sudan to know that the SPLM/A military offensive against the SSDF positions will gravely jeopardize the Provisions and Articles of the peace, humanitarian crisis and political instability in the country. This provocation by the SPLM/A dysfunctional tribal government in Juba will push South-South Civil war similar to split of SPLM/A on 28 August 1991, and then followed by intense inter-factional fighting.

Now, the South Sudan United Democratic Alliance (SSUDA) leadership calls on the Government of Sudan as the de jure “sovereign” power to exercise its sovereign power and authority and its national and international obligations to provide protection to all Sudanese citizens regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, creed and national origin. The SPLA is not the sovereign power in Sudan or in Sudan because it does not have any mandate from the people. Therefore, “sovereign” Sudanese government still bands by the basic laws and constitution of the Republic of Sudan to provide equal protection to all its citizens from any domestic and foreign invasion. The SPLA war mongering in the aftermath of the signing of the bilateral agreement with the GOS, which is an extension of the Khartoum Peace Agreement of 1997 has become intolerable. SSDF cannot any longer tolerate SPLA melancholic behavior in the South and particular in the targeted areas. We believe that the time has ripped for the SPLM/A to kiss the 2005 fragile bilateral agreement goodbye.

SSUDA accuses the United Nations, the international peace sponsors (the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway and Italy) including the Intergovernmental Authority and Development (IGAD) mediators for having illegally granted political power and authority to one party predominated by one ethnic group to execute its crimes against other nationalities. Additionally, the international peace sponsors and the IGAD mediators have failed to bring pressure to bear on the SPLM/A for inclusion of other parties into the mainstream of power and resources sharing and equal development.

Therefore, the exclusion of other military and political forces and the civil societies who have given greater contribution in struggle in the South was more troublesome and remains to be the root of the SPLA growing long horns. The external ambition to build up the SPLM/A dominated by one ethnic group as the predominant political culture is bias or prejudice and would not help bring about a peaceful co-existence in Sudan and South Sudan in particular. We believe that in despite of all the favoritism shown by the peace sponsors and the IGAD to SPLM/A at expense of others, it remains incompetence to govern the South. We would, therefore, like to reiterate that the SPLM/A split and disintegration on 28 August 1991 was lack of a virtual and comprehensive objective in the armed struggle, lack or the absence thereof of democratization and systematic human rights abuses. It has not refrained from these undertakings. In the last 18-20 months since the highly corrupt de facto SPLM/A quasi-government assumed power because of the January 2005 agreement, majority of southern citizens have been living in hell because of corruption, social neglect, tribalism, nepotism and favoritism. The people of South Sudan have the power, capacity and ability to bring down this highly corrupt quasi-government in Juba and replaces it with a federal and multiparty representative democratic government that deprive its basic powers from the people or the governed.

We call on all the GOS, the UN, the international peace sponsors to arrange for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the convening of new direct peace negotiations between SSUDA/SSDF and the SPLM/A as a preventative measure of furthering escalation of a South- South civil war. The SPLA leadership should reckon now that it has provoked a war that would not be concentrated on any one side. Nevertheless, it will rapidly escalate throughout the South, including the SPLM/A led de facto government in Juba. SSUDA represents the voiceless majority in South Sudan, calls upon all different communities to condemn the SPLM/A massacres, genocide and ethnic cleansing throughout the South.

In order to prevent any escalation of a South-South war, we emphasize face-to-face dialogue as a preventive measure for escalation of a bloody South-South Civil War. Failure on Slava Kiir’s de facto government to negotiate in good faith, the inevitability of war is greater than ever in South Sudan. SSUDA/SSDF leadership will fully hold the SPLM/A leadership responsible for any lost of lives, property and the death of innocent civilians throughout South Sudan.

SSDF military forces remain on maximum high alert throughout South Sudan. According to reports coming in from the ground, the state of war now exists between the SPLA and the military forces of the South Sudan Defense Forces. There will be no retreat. According to the SSDF, Military Field Command, the SPLA military aggression will be encounter.

The SPLA has already suffered heavy causalities and bloody noses. SSDF forces have captured three enclaves, men and equipments, many SPLA soldiers have defected to the SSDF command.

Meanwhile, there is independent report from NGOs stated that an internal fighting has flared up within the SPLM/A administration in Tonga. This fighting is between the forces loyal to Wiyay Deng Ajak and the Commissioner of Tonga.

SSUDA/SSDF leadership will do whatever it takes to isolate SPLA war mongering and will promote the culture of peace and democracy throughout South Sudan. SSUDA/SSDF calls for unity, democracy and goodwill amongst all Sudanese and South Sudanese in particular.

Finally, we call on the UN, the IRC, MSF, and international bodies to provide basic humanitarian needs to the victims of the SPLA malicious provocation throughout South Sudan.

For further questions, please contact:

Peter Chuol Gatluak, Information Secretary, SSUDA/SSDF

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 402-812-7997

David de Chand, VP of SSUDA, Spokesman and Director for External Affairs, SSDF

[email protected]

Phone: 402-515-6254