South Sudan’s Kiir hits back at Bashir over recent remarks
November 9, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The president of South Sudan Salva Kiir, today lashed out at his northern counterpart Omer Hassan al-Bashir, accusing him of seeking to deflect away from his own internal problems by blaming other parties for it.
The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) website also quoted Kiir as dismissing Bashir’s allegations that the SPLA is providing support to rebels fighting Khartoum in the border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
Kiir described Bashir’s assertions as a form of escape from his own internal political problems adding that the Sudanese leader is keeping his soldiers away in the battle fields so that they do not turn against him.
Last Sunday, Bashir warned South Sudan that his country is running out of patience and that he is prepared to go to war.
He claimed that his Khartoum was in possession of evidences indicating that the south was preparing to launch a war against the Sudanese Army (SAF), threatening that his country would respond in kind.
The SAF are battling fighters from the Sudan People Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Khartoum accused the SPLM-N of seeking a regime change and attempting to create ‘a second Benghazi’ in reference to the Libyan coastal city which instigated the rebellion against the 41-year-long rule of Muammar Gaddafi.
But the SPLM-N claimed that it was forced to defend itself in face of attempts by SAF to forcibly disarm their fighters.
This month, Sudan lodged its second complaint in 2011 with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) detailing accounts corroborating its assertions that South Sudan is providing military support to the anti-government rebels in Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
South Sudan became an independent nation in July and remarks from leaders in Khartoum and Juba at the time promised cordial and constructive relations between the two neighbours.
Kiir also disclosed today that at least seven people were killed in Upper Nile state as a result of aerial bombardment by SAF.
The United States issued a condemnation of the purported attack.
“The United States strongly condemns in the strongest possible terms the aerial bombardment by the Sudan Armed Forces that occurred near the international border between Sudan and South Sudan, including reportedly the South Sudanese towns of Yafta and Bew Quaffa,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman. Such “indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilian targets always is unacceptable and unjustified,” Toner stressed.
“The provocative aerial bombardments near the border increase the potential of direct confrontation between Sudan and South Sudan,” he added.
“This attack only further emphasises the need for an immediate halt to indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas by the Sudan Armed Forces, and a resolution to the conflict through a resumption of political talks,” he said.
(ST)