South Sudan says NCP “hawks” behind escalation with Khartoum

April 3, 2010 (NAIROBI) – South Sudan’s Information Minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, has blamed hard-liners within the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of Sudan for the degeneration of relations between the two countries.

Relations between Sudan and South Sudan plummeted as of Monday last week when Khartoum accused South Sudan’s army known as the SPLA of attacking the country’s oil-rich town of Heglig. South Sudan said the confrontation around Heglig was provoked by the Sudanese army (SAF) which attacked areas inside its territories in Unity State.

The Heglig clashes ended a short-lived thaw in ties that saw the recently separated neighbours initialing agreements on nationality and borders. They also agreed to hold a summit between Sudan’s President Omer Al-Bashir and his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir in the South Sudanese capital Juba on 3 April. Khartoum, however, cancelled the trip.

Addressing a gathering of South Sudanese citizens in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Tuesday, the South Sudanese minister indicated that the NCP has been hijacked by its own wing of hard-liners.

“We know that the NCP is divided,” he said before pointing out that the party’s “hawks” are responsible the setbacks on post-independence issues and the re-ignition of border clashes.

Benjamin stressed that South Sudan did not start the hostilities, saying their forces had only repulsed an attack by SAF on areas in Unity State and chased them up to Heglig.

He told the audience that Sudan’s defense minister, Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, flew to Heglig one day before the clashes, suggesting that Sudan had deliberately provoked the SPLA to advance to Heglig in order to find “an excuse” for cancelling the agreements and Al-Bashir’s trip to Juba.

The agreement on nationality, which gives citizens of each state in the other the freedom of residence, freedom of movement, freedom to undertake economic activity and freedom to acquire and dispose property, has faced stiff opposition in Sudan from far-right groups and some NCP members.

DENIES BACKING SPLM-N

The South Sudanese minister also took the opportunity to deny that his country is involved in supporting rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army North (SPLM/A-N), which is fighting the Sudanese government in Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

Benjamin is visiting Nairobi to hold talks with Kenyan officials on the possible takeover of the meditation process between Sudan and South Sudan by East African regional bloc the Inter Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), instead of the African Union Panel (AUHIP) of former South African President Mbeki.

The minister said in a press conference on Monday that his country is no longer happy with Mbeki’s mediation, complaining that the AUHIP’s report to the UN Security Council on the ongoing escalation had shown South Sudan to be the one that started the attacks.

(ST)