SPLA resists UNMIS patrols on border between south and Darfur

August 12, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS), told the UN Security Council (UNSC) last week that the southern Sudanese army had resisted their efforts to patrol the area of south Sudan that borders the troubled western state of Darfur.

Major-General Moses Bisong Obi said August 6 that the area was of particular concern. He told the UNSC that the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) had often resisted UNMIS efforts to send patrols to the area.

A UN source told Sudan Tribune on Tuesday that as far as they could tell there was no indication that SPLA were making a concerted effort to restrict access to the area.

The issue was isolated to only two or three incidents and was most likely to have been due to a failure of communication between SPLA leadership and its commanders on the ground, said the official who did not want to be named.

The South Sudan-Darfur border area has been allocated as a hot spot for potential unrest along with other areas such as Akobo and Yambio.

In April the BBC reported that the Rezeigat – a Arab nomadic tribe from southern Dafur – claimed that 55 of its members were killed in a clash with SPLA.

At the time a Rezeigat spokesperson claimed that they were looking for new pastures near the border with southern Sudan when fighting started on April 23.

The SPLA gave a different version of events. They say that their soldiers were attacked by the Sudan Armed Forces, who are controlled by the northern government.

There is a long history of violence between the Dinka, of Western Bahr El Ghazal and the Rezeigat.

During the north-south civil war the Khartoum government used the Rezeigat as proxies to destabilize the Dinka population from which the SPLA drew considerable support.

The raids, which often took place on horseback, began at the behest of Khartoum in 1987.

The current regime of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir continued to pursue the strategy of using proxies against the Dinka and other southern tribes during the north-south civil war with the SPLA after he came to power in a military coup in 1989.

In January 2011 the south is due to vote on whether it wants to separate from the north as part of a 2005 peace deal between Bashir’s National Congress Party and the SPLA, who have governed south Sudan for the last 5 years.

UNMIS Helicopter Hijacked

Also in his statement to the UNSC Bisong ‘described incidents in which an UNMIS helicopter had been hijacked and a patrol manhandled.’

The same UN source said that technically the incident was a hijack under international law but downplayed the incident.

Two SPLA soldiers who were being transported on the helicopter between Juba and Malakal had started an argument with the pilot who refused to drop them off at a third destination the source told Sudan Tribune.

There were no guns or violence involved in the dispute, the source said. All weapons on UNMIS flights are stowed in the hold unless the aircraft is on a patrol.

The helicopter landed over an hour later than scheduled and the soldiers involved were arrested by southern Sudanese authorities on arrival said the UN official.

This was a separate incident to the Russian pilot of a UN helicopter kidnapped in Darfur in June and the capture August 10 of a helicopter, which the SPLA claim was carrying Khartoum backed rebels.

The rest of the details on Bisong’s statement to the UNSC can be found on the UN’s website.

(ST)