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February 17, 2012 (JUBA) - South Sudan on Friday denied allegations from neighbouring Sudan that it is working to topple the Khartoum government by arming rebellions and by its decision to stop exporting oil.
- South Sudan’s Information and Broadcasting Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin
Having seceded from Sudan in July as a result of a 2005 peace deal, relations between South Sudan and the north have been tense with both sides accusing the other of helping rebels in each others territories.
Last month landlocked South Sudan stopped exporting it’s oil through north Sudan over a transit fee dispute, denying itself and Khartoum much needed revenues in hard currency. The loss of half the revenues on the export of South Sudan’s oil, when South Sudan became independent, has had a negative impact on Sudan’s economy.
However, the north has warned South Sudan’s ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), that failure to find a deal on oil would risk a revolution in its own backyard.
Sudan’s presidential adviser, Nafie Ali Nafie, said on Wednesday that the government in Juba has no option to save its nascent economy but to cooperate with Sudan on the issue of economy. Failure to do so, Nafie warned, will expose the world’s newest country to the risk of “an African spring” or uprising by its own citizens.
Revolutions in neighbouring Egypt and Libya have not taken off in Sudan despite conflicts in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The war in Darfur began in 2003, while fighting started in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, which border South Sudan, in 2011.
Members of the northern sector of the SPLM (SPLM-N) in South Kordofan and Blue Nile have vowed to change the regime in Khartoum after what it described as the failure to fully implement the 2005 peace deal in those areas and controversial elections last year.
Juba denies it is aiding its former allies, saying the SPLM in South Sudan split from the northern sector at independence.
Barnaba Marial Benjamin, South Sudan’s minister of information and broadcasting, said Friday that Khartoum was trying to divert the attention of its people from the ruling party’s own failures.
This week Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir said that South Sudan’s decision to close oil production was intended to create economic challenges that would encourage popular uprisings.
But Marial said: "The government of South Sudan and people do not hold grudges against Sudanese people. We did not take up arms against Sudanese people but the system".
South Sudan says the north has been attempting to destabilise region in order to regain control of the oil fields in Unity state.
Marial also accused Khartoum of obstructing the return of South Sudanese from North, creating insecurity, increasing threats to prevent them from returning to their homes and arming tribal groups so they can fight against each other and the Juba government.
Last year a Small Arms Survey report said that there were questions over whether Khartoum had helped arm rebels in Unity and Jonglei states.
"Not only that, they also started bombing civil population residing in areas deeply inside territory of South Sudan" Marial said.
The Sudanese government have denied bombing South Sudanese territory despite it being witnessed by the United Nations (UN) and on one occasion at Yida refugee camp by the BBC and Reuters.
Pagan Amum, the SPLM Secretary General also accused Khartoum of engaging in a series of policies to destabilise the new nation.
“The government of Sudan has been obstructing return of our people from the north by closing borders and creating chaos to discourage them from returning. Not only this, the government of Sudan delayed payment of pensions to South Sudanese who served in the Sudanese army, police and civil service, making many of them vulnerable to recruitment into militia groups to fight South Sudan", he said.
Amum also claimed the government of Sudan had also taken measures to illegally close down and confiscate private companies owned by South Sudanese.
The official said South Sudanese shareholders in joint companies have been forced to quit and their shares have been confiscated.
He also repeated Juba’s claim that South Sudanese youth in Sudan are being forcefully conscripted into militia groups by the Sudanese military.
(ST)
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