SRF rebel leader denies South Sudan’s participation in border clashes
By Ngor Arol Garang
March 1, 2012 (JUBA) – Malik Agar, chairman of the rebel Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) on Thursday denied Khartoum’s allegation that South Sudan participated in the recent attack on the border and disputed town of Jau.
“They are feeling the heat which they do not want to accept,” Agar told Sudan Tribune on Thursday from an undisclosed location. “The South Sudan army has no any interest in where the fighting took place. It took place outside its territory we fought inside Sudanese territory,” he underlined.
Agar is leading the Sudan Revolutionary Front which includes the two factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdel Wahid al-Nur (SLM-AW) and Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM); the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N)-; and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
The rebel coalition which is composed of rebel groups from the three bordering regions with the newly independent South Sudan aims to topple the regime of President Omer Hassan al-Bashir in Khartoum.
“We captured from the Sudanese Armed Forces a lot of weapons mounted on 132 vehicles including nine tanks and several other heavy machine guns and different types of artilleries. This explains our strength and where we get support. It is actually the Sudanese army which is giving us support not anybody else,” Agar said.
He accused Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of using its security forces, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), to attack the Nuba people in Khartoum and throughout the region.
“Security forces took out girls as young as 10 years old in Dongola and Wadi Halfa, and also 150 university girls from the dormitories. These women and girls were subjected to sexual violence and raping. The young Nuba are being lynched. The situation is so bad that two girls are reported to have committed suicide before they were raped,” alleged Agar.
He said the NCP was rejecting calls for a peaceful settlement of the dispute by intensifying its military violence and recruiting more mercenaries and jihadists and receiving arms from Iran.
There is no perspective for a negotiated settlement between the rebel alliance and the government as the SRF says henceforward talks should be comprehensive and refuses to hold separate talks on Darfur from one sides and Blue Nile and South Kordofan from the other side.
According to Agar, 50 mounted vehicles were dispatched from Khartoum to South Kordofan on Wednesday. He also alleged the NCP has called upon its ten states to contribute 10,000 Popular Defense Force (PDF) troops to send to Darfur.
The PDF have been described as mujahideen, fighters of the holy war, who operate as network of militarised and civilian groups and are responsible for carrying out many of Khartoum’s demands in Darfur and the border area with South Sudan.
Agar said that Sudan’s president, Omer al-Bashir appointed Sadiq El Mahdi to a position where he is mobilising political parties because he is seen as a pro-western politician and will therefore quieten calls from the international community to intensify sanctions against the country.
He added that there is a “unity of murderers” as Mahdi, like Bashir is a human rights violator as he organized Daein massacre of 1987.
(ST)