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Africa Horn

Bashir Threatens To Close Pipeline In Row With South Sudan

2013-05-28

[Jpost] Sudan will close "forever" an oil pipeline carrying oil exports from South Sudan if Juba supports rebels operating on Sudanese soil, President Omar Hassan Bashir said Monday. "I now give our brothers in South Sudan a last, last warning that we will shut down the oil pipeline forever if they give any support to the traitors in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile," Bashir said on state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe? , referring to Death Eaters operating in three Sudanese regions.

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Africa Horn

Sudan’s deal with South will not end conflict, says opposition

2012-10-05

KHARTOUM: Sudan and South Sudan will remain locked in conflict despite reaching a border security deal last week, leading Sudanese opposition figure Hassan Turabi said. The two African countries have been wrangling over contested areas along the border and other issues since breaking apart last year under a peace deal that ended decades of civil war. Under pressure from the United Nations and African Union, the two agreed last Thursday to set up a demilitarized border zone and resume oil exports from the landlocked South after Juba shut them down in a row with Khartoum over transit fees. But the deal failed to resolve problems like where to draw the final border, what to do with the disputed Abyei area and how to end rebellions in two Sudanese border states which Khartoum says Juba is backing, Turabi said. “If we conclude a marriage we have to see to it that the bride and the groom trust each other ... There is no trust, and then serious problems are not settled,” he told Reuters. “They wanted to please the world only, because they are under pressure, and they can’t stand the pressure from inside and the pressure from outside.” Turabi, one of Sudan’s most influential politicians throughout the 1990s, dismissed the suggestion the deal was a boost to the government of President Omar Hassan Bashir, which has faced small protests over rising prices. The government scaled back costly fuel subsidies in June to help plug a budget gap left when South Sudan took three-quarters of the country’s oil output at independence, stoking already double-digit inflation. Anti-government demonstrations erupted across Sudan when the spending cuts were announced, but petered out after a security crackdown and the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Turabi said he expected more protests. “It was a good experiment for us ... and the next time we do it, we want it to be continuous,” he said. Turabi was spiritual mentor to the Islamist leaders of the bloodless 1989 coup that brought Bashir to power, but he fell out with the president and has spent more than a decade in opposition. He has been arrested several times. Changing Sudan’s government was the only way to ensure stable, friendly relations between the north and south, he said, adding the two were still culturally intertwined despite a war that killed some 2 million people. “If there is democracy here — and there as well —culturally these two countries will immediately come close. We are closer to one another than the French and the Germans,” Turabi said. Yet he cautioned against moving from Bashir’s government into “chaos,” saying his Popular Congress Party was working with other opposition parties to devise an orderly transition. “It’s easy to destroy a house, it’s very difficult to build a new one,” he said.

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Africa Horn

Sudans Bashir claims disputed Abyei belongs to north

2011-04-29

[Arab News] Sudan President Omar Hassan Bashir said on Wednesday the disputed oil-producing Abyei region will remain part of the north after the south secedes in July. Abyei straddles north and south Sudan and both sides have been building up forces there, according to satellite images and the United Nations. ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... South Sudan's draft constitution, to be adopted after the south becomes independent on July 9, lays claim to Abyei, according to a copy seen by Rooters. Bashir rejected the claim. "Abyei is located in north Sudan and will remain in north Sudan," he told a rally in the province of Southern Kordofan where long-delayed parliamentary and gubernatorial elections start next week. The audience for his speech, which was televised, was largely from the Arab nomadic Misseriya tribe who lay claim to Abyei, where they graze their cattle a few months a year. The pro-south Dinka Ngok tribe who reside there all year say Abyei is their territory. Southern Kordofan, which borders Abyei, contains much of the north's future oil production and Bashir's ruling National Congress Party is fielding Ahmed Haroun as its candidate for governor there in the elections. Haroun is wanted by the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... for war crimes in Sudan's western Darfur region. North and south Sudan fought each other for all but a few years since 1955 over differences in ethnicity, ideology, religion and oil. The conflict claimed at least 2 million lives and destabilized much of the region. Southern Sudanese voted in January to separate from the north and form a new nation, a referendum promised to them as part of a 2005 peace deal which ended the decades of civil war. An Abyei referendum on whether to joint the north or south was meant to run parallel to the January vote, but it did not take place. Talks on Abyei's future have stalled.

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Africa Horn

Sudanese tribal leaders call for jihad if non-AU force enters Darfur

2006-06-10

Tribal leaders on Friday rejected the possibility of U.N. peacekeepers replacing African Union forces in Darfur, with one chief threatening a "holy war" if non-African troops deployed to the Sudanese region. Their concerns emerged as U.N. Security Council members met with Sudanese government and tribal leaders, relief workers and about 15 representatives of displaced people living in volatile camps surrounding this northern Darfur town. The council steered clear of the camps because of security concerns sparked by opposition to a Darfur peace agreement that the government and main rebel group signed May 5. Earlier this week in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, President Omar Hassan Bashir told the council his government would proceed with talks on replacing African Union peacekeepers with a U.N. force, but he refused to give the plan an immediate green light. That reluctance was echoed by tribal and youth leaders invited to meet the council in Darfur, the vast western region ravaged by an ethnic conflict that some, including the Bush administration, have called a genocide. Fighting has left an estimated 100,000 to 450,000 people dead and an additional 2 million homeless. Mowadh Jalaladin, a representative of the Barty tribe , said handing over to a U.N. force "would inaugurate foreign occupation and intervention" and remind Sudanese of their colonial past, echoing earlier government rhetoric that has fanned anti-U.N. sentiment. Jalaladin said his tribe had about 250,000 members. On Friday, the al-Jazeera satellite television network broadcast a videotape by the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which he said the Security Council's visit to Sudan was "to prepare to occupy and divide it." If a U.N. force comes to Darfur, Jalaladin said, "we are declaring jihad against it. . . . It means death. It means defending Sudan and Islam." "The root causes of the Darfur conflict are the doing of the Jewish organizations who financed this armed rebellion," Jalaladin said. "We don't want the Security Council to be an instrument of the ugly undertakings of the United States of America." Decades of low-level clashes in Darfur over land and water erupted in early 2003 when African rebel groups rose up against the Arab-led government, which responded by unleashing ethnic Arab militias known as janjaweed, who have been accused of atrocities. The government denies backing the janjaweed but agreed under the May 5 truce to disarm and disband them.

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Africa Horn

Sudan's Bashir Rebuffs U.N. on Peacekeepers

2006-04-27

UNITED NATIONS, April 26 -- Sudan's president has rejected a U.N. appeal to allow its peacekeepers into the Darfur region to help stem a tide of violence that has left more than 100,000 dead and more than 2 million displaced over the past three years, a senior U.N. official told the Security Council on Wednesday. The remarks represented a setback for a U.S.-backed proposal to send more than 15,000 U.N. and NATO peacekeepers to Darfur to replace an underequipped African Union force of more than 6,000 troops. The Bush administration has accused Sudan and a government-backed militia of committing genocide in Darfur. Hedi Annabi, the United Nations' second-ranking peacekeeping official, told the 15-nation council in a closed session that Khartoum formally rejected a request to send an assessment mission there. "Such an assessment remains an indispensable step in the planning process," said Annabi, who briefed the council on a recent meeting with Sudan's president, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir, in Khartoum. Annabi warned that Sudan's opposition could doom U.N. peacekeeping plans. He suggested the council look outside the United Nations for troops if it decides to intervene in Darfur without an invitation from the government. "The government of Sudan remains opposed to a transition to a United Nations operation in Darfur and has so far been unwilling to cooperate with our planning efforts," Annabi told the council. The Bush administration accused Khartoum of stalling. "This is just delaying and delaying and delaying, and it's consistent with the pattern that the Sudanese government has followed for years in this," said John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Annabi said the Sudanese leader left open the possibility of some U.N. role in assisting peace efforts if Khartoum makes peace with two Darfurian rebel groups. Peace talks underway in Abuja, Nigeria, are to conclude Sunday. If those talks fail, and the Security Council were to decide to intervene without Khartoum's approval, Annabi said that "such a mission is better undertaken by means other than a U.N. operation." The Bush administration has secured NATO approval for a plan to send several hundred NATO advisers to bolster the African Union peacekeeping mission, as a first step in the transition to a U.N. mission, officials said. The Bush administration also sponsored a resolution Tuesday imposing a travel ban and freezing the assets of a senior Sudanese air force officer and three other Sudanese nationals for committing war crimes or impeding the peace process in Darfur.

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Africa: Horn

Sudan Lifts Emergency Law, Except in Darfur

2005-07-11

Sudan's new presidency yesterday lifted the state of emergency in Sudan, except in the conflict-torn regions of Darfur and the east, a statement from the presidential palace said. One day after former southern rebel leader John Garang was sworn in as first vice president to head a new government as President Omar Hassan Bashir's deputy, emergency law giving authorities wide powers to detain without charge and to crack down on opposition forces was cancelled. The statement said Bashir had lifted the state of emergency, in force in Sudan since 1999, except in five states. They are the three states of Darfur and two states bordering Eritrea in the east, where a low intensity conflict escalated in recent months.

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Africa: Horn

Thousands Dance With Sudanese President in Southern Town

2005-01-11

Thousands of southern Sudanese danced with President Omar Hassan Bashir yesterday one day after a peace deal was signed to end more than two decades of civil war in the south. A crowd of about 10,000 southerners singing and waving their hands encircled Bashir as he danced to traditional southern music, dressed in a civilian brown suit and covered in a white cloak symbolizing peace. "I used to dress in khaki because I am in the army and because there was war," Bashir told the crowd, which defied security and his armed guards and thrust forward, surrounding his platform. "Today I am still in the army ... but I'm not wearing khaki because there is no more war." Khaki's are being cleaned and pressed so they'll be ready when the war resumes Bashir flew to Juba from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where his government signed an agreement on Sunday with the southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army to end Africa's longest civil war, which has claimed more than 2 million lives. "Peace is the gift I bring to you," he told the people who had come from all around Juba, southern Sudan's main town.

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Africa: Horn

Turabi Faces Trial in Plot to Overthrow Government

2004-10-19

Reuters • Agence France Presse Jailed Sudanese Islamist Hassan Turabi will face charges in court for trying to topple the government, a high-level security source said yesterday. Turabi, formerly a close ally to President Omar Hassan Bashir, was arrested at the end of March this year after his party was loosely linked to a plot by a group of military officers to topple the government. He was later moved into a safe house outside Khartoum but went back to Kobar prison in Khartoum last month after the government said his opposition Popular Congress party had conspired to assassinate top leaders and blow up strategic places in Khartoum on Sept. 24. The sources said the security services had now completed the investigation into the plot and would be presenting the case to the courts. "We are going to take them to court. We have finished our investigation and the police are now trying to get the case in front of the court for more than 60 of them," the source said. "Turabi, he's now also inside the case." The source said all would face charges of trying to topple the government. "There's strong evidence against his people. He will also stand in front of the court," the source added. The government has said it would take legal action against the party, which could lead to it being banned.

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Africa: Horn

Sudan Arrests 10 Military Officers for Planning Coup

2004-03-29

Sudanese security forces have arrested 10 military officers who were plotting to overthrow the government, a high-ranking military official said yesterday. The official told Reuters the officers were arrested on Sunday and were mostly from war-torn western Sudan. He said they all had sympathies to the opposition Popular Congress party, led by Islamist leader Hassan Al-Turabi. Fundos, y'mean? “There are 10, all of officer rank, under the leadership of a colonel... It was an attempt at a coup d’etat,” the military official said, adding that the group had been caught meeting in a military headquarters in Khartoum. Turabi denied his party was involved in a coup bid but said his sources had told him around 27 officers had been arrested. The opposition leader is a former ally of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup. It's an old tradition... Amid rumors of arrests, local press sources said they had been told by security not to publish anything on the issue. The military official said nine officers were from Darfur in west Sudan where the government has been fighting rebels for more than a year. The government has said major conflict in the area is over, but witnesses say government planes have bombed the area in recent weeks. “The fact that five of the officers implicated were from the air force has very far reaching consequences because of the government’s reliance on aerial bombardment in its war against the rebels in Darfur,” the military official said. Aerial bombardment works when the target's the presidential palace, too... Turabi was detained in 2001 after a power struggle with Bashir and released from house arrest in October. He said while his Popular Congress party was not involved in any coup attempt he supported the charges by the western rebels who say their region has been neglected by the government. “It’s not only a purge. It is going to be a charge of attempted coup d’etat,” he told Reuters by telephone in Cairo about those officers arrested. He also said the officers were from the Darfur region, nearby Kordofan and other areas. In addition, Turabi said five senior members of his party had been detained yesterday, with the first arrests made in the early morning. But he said it was not clear whether they would be kept for questioning of a few hours or held longer. Another party official said a further seven activists had been arrested. The questioning of Turabi’s deputy, Abdullah Hassan Ahmed, on Sunday evening had centered on the uprising, he said.

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Africa: East

More Bashir remaining Sudan’s Maximum Leader

2003-12-30

Sudan’s four-year-old state of emergency could end if a peace deal is signed to end two decades of civil war in the south, the official Sudan News Agency SUNA reported yesterday. President Omar Hassan Bashir imposed a state of emergency in Africa’s largest country in December 1999. SUNA quoted Chairman of the Justice and Legislation Committee Ismail Al-Haj Musa as saying the president had sent a letter to Parliament asking that the emergency law be extended for a fifth year. “When a comprehensive cease-fire agreement is signed within the framework of a peace agreement, reasons for the state of emergency will cease to exist,” Musa quoted Bashir as saying in the letter. The state of emergency gives Bashir and the security authorities unlimited powers to arrest people, detain them indefinitely, close newspapers and dissolve parliament.

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International

Sudan offers cease-fire...

2002-01-14

Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir offered to temporarily stop bombing rebel positions for four weeks in a meeting with former Sen. John Danforth, President Bush's special envoy to the conflict. "We offered to declare a voluntary, unilateral cessation of aerial bombing for four weeks as a test," Bashir's top adviser on the conflict, Ghazi Salah el-Din Atabani said. Atabani said he hoped the move would "prepare the atmosphere for a comprehensive cease-fire." U.S. officials in Danforth's delegation were skeptical. Are he trying to make the point that just because he practices slavery he's still not in the same category as the Taliban? US prestige would appear to be up.

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