South Sudan says reports of exploding radios false

Oct 11, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — South Sudanese officials denied on Wednesday that explosives had been found in radios in their capital Juba and said unfounded reports of lethal blasts were aimed at creating instability.

“The investigation by the police of the reports about the explosives in the radio and radio cassettes…were found to be false,” acting inspector general of police, David Okeir Akyay told reporters.

Reports of deaths from blasts were also false, he added.

Last month police captain Daniel Barnaba told reporters that four people had been killed by explosives hidden in radios. Akyay declined to specify if Barnaba was an active member of his police force.

“You must know that no junior officer is allowed to deliver any statement to the press unless he is authorised by this office or his commander,” he said.

Samson Kwaje, spokesman for the southern government, also denied reports of fatalities.

“The government of south Sudan would like to reassure the public that some of these statements are made by unauthorised people and possibly…enemies of the government so as to create instability, rumour and uncertainty in south Sudan,” said Kwaje.

Juba is trying to rebuild after a January 2005 peace deal which ended more than two decades of bitter north-south civil war.

But the peace is fragile with periodic clashes between southern tribes and militias as well as continued tension between the mostly Muslim north and the mostly Christian and animist south.

U.N. spokesperson Radhia Achouri in Khartoum said U.N. experts had determined any blasts were more likely to be from unexploded ordnance such as grenades or land mines left over from the conflict.

“Our mine action people carried out an investigation and we found that a white substance like cement had been put inside the radio devices to give them balance,” said Achouri.

“There were no explosives placed inside radio devices,” she added. The United Nations at the time of the original reports of blasts had issued a warning against buying any electronic devices in Juba.

Unexploded mines or grenades are often triggered in southern Sudan by the hundreds of thousands of Sudanese returning home after peace. Experts say it could take decades to fully demine the south.

Juba is also hosting peace talks between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army sponsored by the south Sudan regional government.

Those talks are aimed at ending a 20-year Uganda insurgency that has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly two million in northern Uganda.

(Reuters)