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 oil 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 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 the 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 the SPLM only understands the
"language of the gun".
However, Itto said that 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)
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