Khartoum’s NCP is like a mosquito says SPLM’s Itto
April 23, 2012 (JUBA) – South Sudan’s ruling party responded to Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir describing them as “insects” that must be crushed last week, by saying that the government in Khartoum is like a “Mosquito that bites and takes human blood”.
The bellicose bug related barbs come as the two nations teeter on the bring of all-out war less than 10 months after South Sudan separated from Sudan last year. Despite South Sudan’s SPLM and Khartoum’s National Congress Party (NCP) spending six years sharing power they were not able to resolve a host of issues.
South Sudan’s independence went ahead in July 2011 without agreements on demarcating the oil-rich border and what fees Juba would pay to export its crude through northern pipelines.
Since late March low level border skirmishes in disputed border areas rapidly turned into large scale clashes, resulting in Juba’s occupation of a key oil field on 10 April which had – until it was turned off by South Sudan’s army (SPLA) – provided Khartoum with half its production.
The UN Secretary General called the move “illegal” and after 10 days the SPLA pulled out as per demands by the UN, African Union, European Union, United States and others.
However, Sudan says that in fact it forced the SPLA out of the area and has since embarked on an aerial bombing campaign inside South Sudan, with one senior intelligence official expressing fears that a ground assault could be imminent.
On Monday Anne Itto, Deputy Secretary General of South Sudan’s governing Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), told a press conference she was disappointed over the reluctance of the international community to hold Sudan to account for their “indiscriminate aerial attacks”.
A market in Unity State was hit on Monday, leading South Sudanese to accuse the northern military of deliberately targeting civilians. The bombs were hitting “non-military” areas Itto said.
“We have always shown responsibility to appropriately respond to calls by the international community even when the world knows we are the victims; but what happens? Khartoum has always shown the contrary and exploited our response”, she said.
The senior figure said that she could not understand why the international community pays less attention to the Sudanese bombing than it did the SPLA’s occupation of Heglig, which Juba says is part of South Sudan.
Itto described Khartoum as a “Mosquito that bites and makes noise gratuitously even though it has taken human blood and injected parasites.”
The rhetoric between the two nations has heated up over the last week with Sudan’s president vowing to “liberate” South Sudan from the ruling SPLM, ruling out further talks as Juba’s leaders only understand the “language of the gun”.
However, Itto said that the SPLM “have never abandoned dialogue” with the NCP.
“It is Khartoum that walked out of the negotiation table in Addis Ababa last month. For us we have always remained ready to resuming discussions”, said Itto.
(ST)