Russia claims US interest in S. Sudan motivated by oil

By Toby Collins

Janurary 16, 2012 (LONDON) – Russian state media claim that the US backed the secession of South Sudan and offers it military support because it wants the nascent state’s oil.

Mouthpiece for the Russian Ministry of Defence, Krasnaya Zvezda (KZ), published an article on 12 January claiming the US administration has sent five senior military advisers to Juba for “information gathering, strategic planning and development of military operations“ [translation] and has approved the sale of military equipment to South Sudan.

The US has been a vocal proponent of South Sudan, a oil-rich state which gained its independence on 9 July 2011.

KZ claim that US president, Barack Obama, wrote to secretary of state, Hilary Clinton stating that the sale of arms to South Sudan is in the security interests of the US.

KZ’s suggestion that “Western companies have almost absolute control over the oil resources of the country“ [translation] is less plausible as the dominance of the Sudanese and South Sudanese oil sectors by Eastern companies is well documented.

However, it is probable that Western companies intend to stake a claim in the South Sudanese oil sector.

KZ cite the deployment of 7,000 UN peacekeepers in South Sudan and the 100 US Special Forces troops assisting the Ugandan army in the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as indicative of the US intention to stake a claim in the state.

The US pays the lion’s share of the UN’s budget and is one of the organisations most significant players.

The LRA is a militia hailing from northern Ugandan. Their demands and agenda have become amorphous; which has impeded negotiations. They have been the scourge of the region, including South Sudan, for a decade and previous attempts to kill or capture the LRA leader, who has an International Criminal Court warrant against his name, have failed.

The Russian article was picked up by state media, Sudanese Media Centre, keen to highlight instances of anti-South Sudanese and American sentiment in the international press.

Relations between Sudan and Russia are cordial. Russia officially backed that April 2010 elections which received widespread international support and there are allegations that it has broken international trade embargoes by supplying Sudan with arms.

Reports of a secret meeting between the Russian envoy to Sudan and a South Sudanese delegation in Israel, ahead of the country’s secession, did not allude to its content.

(ST)