Sudan’s Salva kiir requests the arrest of SSDF militia leaders
Dec 6, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s first vice president has demanded the arrest of two pro-Khartoum generals involved in deadly clashes in the southern town of Malakal last month, newspapers have reported.
“I have asked the defence minister to bring us generals Gabriel Tanginya and Thomas Mabior, who are responsible for the Malakal crimes, so they can be tried,” Salva Kiir was quoted as saying in the press Wednesday.
Kiir, who is officially the country’s number two and heads the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement, made his request during a gathering in Malakal, some 700 kilometres (430 miles) south of Khartoum.
Late last month, more than 100 people were killed and 300 injured in heavy fighting there between SPLA forces and rival southern militiamen backed by the predominantly northern regular army.
Mabior and Tanginya head the South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF), a southern movement backed by Khartoum which the SPLM/A considers a militia and was not included in the January 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil conflict.
Kiir stressed that the SPLA was solely responsible for security in the south.
He demanded all militias be disarmed and regular army soldiers whose presence in the south is not stipulated in the peace agreement be pulled back to the north.
According to some newspapers, the violence erupted in Malakal when militiamen loyal to Tanginya and his deputy Thomas Mabior killed an SPLA policeman.
After being hunted down by SPLA forces, the gunmen sought refuge in an army base and wider fighting broke out after the regular army refused to hand over Tanginya’s men.
A Sudanese army spokesman had denied any involvement of the regular army in the clashes that rocked Malakal November 26-28 and forced the United Nations to evacuate some of its staff.
The Malakal violence and another clash in the conflict-ridden region of Darfur’s main city El-Fasher have dealt a blow to President Omar al-Beshir fragile relations with his peace partners in the south and the west.
(AFP)