Article source: http://www.radiodabanga.org/ar/node/25730

وفي نيالا  شكا عدد من أصحاب المخابز و المواطنين بجنوب دارفور من شح في الدقيق الوارد ألي الولاية، الى جانب احتكار بعض الجهات لتجارة وتوزيع الدقيق للمخابز.  ومن جهة ثانية  طالب مواطنو منطقة بليل شرقي مدينة نيالا، جهاز الأمن برفع يده من سلعة الدقيق، التي احتكر توزيعها لعدد من التجار.  وقال عدد من المواطنين أن جهاز الأمن بالمنطقة سيطر علي توزيع سلعة الدقيق بالمنطقة منذ  مطلع الشهر الجاري، مما أدى الى لجوء أصحاب المخابز لشراء الدقيق من السوق الأسود

Article source: http://www.radiodabanga.org/ar/node/25731

South Sudan president Salva Kiir meets with head of the African Union–United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID) Ibrahim Gambari in Juba february 21, 2012 (GoSS Website)

Gambari is specifically seeking help in convincing non-signatory Darfur rebel groups to join the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD). This strategy is expected to be incorporated into a UN-AU roadmap for peace in Darfur that is still in the works.

A tripartite committee will discuss the proposed roadmap in details next month in Addis Ababa.

The Sudanese government and Liberation and Equality Movement (LJM) signed the DDPD last July after nearly two years of talks.

The powerful Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) refused to sign and demanded that talks be reopened on the basis of the text but Khartoum rejected the request.

South Sudan government website quoted Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister Nhial Deng Nhial as saying that the UNAMID chief came to Juba to request Kiir’s support to the ongoing efforts to bring about peace in Darfur.

Kiir reiterated the position taken by the ruling Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) since 2005 that they wish to see the conflict in Darfur resolved peacefully. He also assured Gambari that he will do everything possible to ensure that the international community efforts to restore peace in Darfur are promoted.

Gambari on his end thanked Kiir for welcoming him and expressed his full satisfaction with the commitment made by South Sudan for resolving Darfur crisis.

He stressed that what is needed now in Darfur is peace and Darfurian people must be part of the solution rather than being part of problems in the relations between South Sudan and the Sudan.

JEM, two factions of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Abdel Wahid al-Nur (SLM-AW) and Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) signed last November an alliance pact agreeing that a comprehensive solution for Sudan’s problems requires toppling the regime of President Omer Hassan al-Bashir.

Juba and Kampala are seen as main backers of Darfur rebels.

(ST)

Article source: http://www.sudantribune.com/UNAMID-chief-seeks-to-enlist-Juba,41678

FILE – NCP vice-chairman Nafie Ali Nafie

In a press conference held in Khartoum on Tuesday, Nafie was asked by reporters on the veracity of press reports that some Islamist figures were planning to re-register the IM as a political party.

“No, this is not true”, he tersely replied. Nafie added that if these rumors are based on the recent reform memo submitted by a group of Islamists, he has already met members of this group and they are not contemplating such move.

“This is a group which gave us advises and is talking from within. They share the same ideas and program of the NCP but they are only seeking better performance” Nafie said.

The IM was dissolved few years after Sudan’s Islamists took power in a military coup in 1989. It comprised a wide spectrum of Islamists including those who supported the coup and those who did not.

Following the 1999 schism in the NCP between supporters of the ousted NIF leader Hassan Al-Turabi and fellow Islamists who sided with President Al-Bashir, the IM was revived but it remained largely dormant, confining its activities to issuing statements on national occasions.

The IM’s secretary-general is Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha.

In January this year, news of a mysterious reform memo drafted by dissatisfied members of the NCP and the IM leaked to the media. The memo, reportedly signed by 1000 individuals, underscored the urgency of addressing widespread corruption, establishing a citizenship-based state and banning the combination of party positions with constitutional positions.

Media reports in Khartoum spoke over the last two days about a number of Islamists intending to re-register the IM as a political party. As of Saturday, 18 February, nearly 2000 members of the IM began receiving text messages informing them that the old group is about to re-emerge.

“The Islamic Movement is pleased to invite you to attend its first foundational conference which will empower the youth and those praying in the dark to dispel years of submissiveness and disappointment” part of the text message seen by Sudan Tribune read.

A source close to Islamists told Sudan Tribune that the group intending to re-register the IM is seeking by this step to activate its membership following the political changes that resulted from the breakup of the country with South Sudan’s secession in July.

The source revealed that their group had already begun the procedures to register the IM with the registrar of political parties.

He indicated that some NCP officials had sent messages urging them not to rush registration while some IM members opine that there is no need for registering it as a political party but there is a need to re-activate the existing structures.

(ST)

Article source: http://www.sudantribune.com/Sudan-s-NCP-denies-moves-to,41680

A close-up of South African officers of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) based in Kutum, Sudan (UN photos)

The rebel group held a 55-personpeacekeeping patrol in northwestern Darfur saying they entered without permission a territory they control. However JEM fighters released the 50 Senegalese soldiers and two police advisors from Ghana and Rwanda.

The three others were suspected by the rebel group of being members of the Sudanese security service and refused to allow them to move. JEM spokesperson Gibreel Adam Bilal said on Monday they will be freed only if the investigation prove they are not working for the government.

Bilal, nevertheless, Tuesday announced the release of the Sudanese and the Yemeni peacekeeper saying they left with the UNAMID West Darfur Sector Commander, Brig. Gen. Mansamusa Mondeh, who held a meeting with the JEM commanders in the area.

The rebel spokesperson further told Sudan Tribune that Mondeh apologized for the entry of UNAMID patrol without prior authorization, and pledged to coordinate in the future with them to avoid such incident.

However, in a press statement released on Tuesday the joint mission gave another version. The UNAMID said all the members of the a long-range patrol returned to their home base in Umm Baru ” without injury and without any conditionality.”

UNAMID chief Ibrahim Gamabri once again condemned “the blockage” of the patrol reminding that the peacekeepers are mandated to protect civilians “throughout the Darfur region”, in response to the rebels demand to get a permission before to enter their territory.

After hailing the role played by his Force Commander, Lt. Gen. Patrick Nyamvumba, and Mondeh to secure the release of the patrol members, he warned that “any hostile act against a UN peacekeeper, including locally recruited staff, is a violation of international humanitarian law and a possible war crime.”

The head of the largest peacekeeping operation further emphasized that the stand-off only ended after the arrival of important reinforcements of UNAMID troops as the members of the patrol refused to leave the area without their three colleagues.

Yesterday Gibreel said the Senegalese soldiers refused to leave without the Sudanese workers but he did not mention the presence of the Yemeni peacekeeper among the retained people.

JEM rebels refuse to sign the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) despite their participation in the over two year peace process. they criticize Gambari for his support to the implementation of the framework agreement on the ground.

The rebel group also stated Gambari is not a neutral mediator and they refuse to see him mediating any future process to end the nine-year conflict with the Sudanese government.

The Joint Chief Mediator ad Interim, was Tuesday in Juba to ask the South Sudanese government to press Darfur rebel groups to join the DDPD. South Sudan and Uganda are considered by the international community as close allies to the Sudanese rebels.

(ST)

Article source: http://www.sudantribune.com/Darfur-rebels-UNAMID-confirm,41681

February 22,2012- (JUBA)- South Sudan on Wednesday said it has started reviewing all oil contracts signed by the government of neighboring Sudan before the region’s independence, one day after Juba expelled the head of a Chinese oil company.

FILE – South Sudan’s oil minister Stephen Dhieu (L) and Minister of Media Benjamin Marial (R) (Gurtong)

Sudan and South Sudan are expected to resume talks on oil by the end of this month after previous rounds failed to reach agreement on a fair charge to transport southern oil through Sudan’s territories, fueling tension and threats of war between the recently separated countries.

South Sudan’s government expelled on Tuesday the Chinese head of Petrodar, a consortium of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Malaysia’s Petronas, on the grounds of “non-cooperation”, according to Pagan Amum, the secretary-general of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Juba.

Prior to the expulsion of PETRONAS chief, South Sudan threatened to expel Chinese companies operating in its territories if they are proven to be complicit with Khartoum in what Juba terms the stealing of South Sudan’s oil.

“They cannot have it both ways. Cooperate with Khartoum in stealing oil and at the same time pretends to be partners with us. It does not work like that” South Sudan’s oil minister Stephen Dhieu told Sudan Tribune on Wednesday.

“If any company wants to work in the republic of South Sudan, they have to respect terms of reference of the memorandum of understanding which they signed with us” Dhieu added.

He went on to reveal that his ministry had already started reviewing contracts which he said were signed between Khartoum and oil companies before South Sudan’s independence.

“We are in a different era and under a complete different system. We are [an] independent state with complete authority in areas under territorial jurisdiction of the republic of South Sudan” he pointed out.

Dhieu accused some of oil companies of receiving instructions from Khartoum on issues taking place in South Sudan and not in Sudan. “This contravenes the terms of reference of the memorandum of understanding which we signed with them in December, 2011” he explained.

It is for this reason and other similar ones, Dhieu said, that the government of South Sudan “felt it would be better if individual members, especially some heads of the foreign oil companies who are not respecting the terms of reference be replaced. So we asked for replacement of the president of PETRONAS.”

Some Sudanese officials have argued that South Sudan’s threats against Chinese companies are part of a conspiracy to replace them with Western companies. China is the biggest buyer of Sudanese oil and has good relations with the government in Khartoum.

(ST)

Article source: http://www.sudantribune.com/South-Sudan-to-reviews-oil,41682

FILE – Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir (R) with his advisor Nafie Ali Nafie in Khartoum on Nov. 24, 2011 (REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah)

Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has initiated discussions on a new constitution for the country following its breakup in July last year when South Sudan declared independence.

NCP officials, including President Omer Al-Bashir, have indicated that the new constitution will be purely based on Islamic Shari’ah law to reflect what they believe is the homogenous nature of the country after the mainly-Christian south seceded.

The vice-chairman of the National Congress Party (NCP), Nafie Ali Nafie, on Tuesday revealed that he held a meeting with officials of the political parties that are represented in the government to the end of discussing how to move forward in drafting a new constitution.

Nafie said in statements published by the official news agency (SUNA) that the ongoing dialogue with political parties on the new constitution had reached an advanced stage and discussions are now expected to move to the point of how to form the constitutional committee.

However, the hard-line NCP figure said that the position of the Popular Congress Party (PCP) of the veteran Islamist Hassan Al-Turabi, and the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), on boycotting the discussions does not detract from national consensus.

The SCP and the PCP in particular appear to be the most committed opposition forces to the goal of regime change through popular uprising.

The National Umma Party (NUP) of former Prime Minister Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi has refused to join the “broad-base” government formed by the NCP last year but Al-Mahdi maintains mild criticism of the government and says he prefers dialogue with the NCP.

Nafie described the regime change rhetoric of the PCP and the SCP as mere “dreams and illusions.”

The NCP has largely escaped the contagion of revolts that toppled long-serving regimes in Sudan’s Arab milieu in 2011. However, the party is grappling with increased dissent due to worsening economic conditions and perceived corruption.

In a separate subject, Nafie also downplayed the selection of Malik Aggar as a leader of the Sudanese Revolutionary Forces (SRF).

Aggar, who is the chairman of the armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N), was elected on Monday as President of the SRF which comprises his group plus three rebel factions from the country’s western region of Darfur.

The declared goal of the SRF alliance is to topple the Sudanese government through armed struggle.

Nafie said that Aggar’s election bears nothing new and suggests that Darfur groups were being marginalized within the SRF alliance.

SPLM-N fighters have been fighting government forces in South Kordofan and Blue Nile state since last year.

Aggar was the governor of Blue Nile until he was sacked by Al-Bashir following the eruption of the conflict in Blue Nile in September.

(ST)

Article source: http://www.sudantribune.com/Nafie-shrugs-off-opposition,41675

Employees of the PETRODAR Operating Company, a Chinese-Malaysian oil consortium operating in South Sudan, await the arrival of ranking government officials at the Paloich airport in Melut County, South Sudan on Tuesday Feb. 21, 2012 (AP)

“The [oil] minister has just expelled the president of Petrodar,” said Secretary General of the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) Pagan Amum who is also South Sudan’s top negotiator for talks with Sudan over oil payments.

“I think one of the reasons is lack of cooperation by the President of Petrodar [with the government] and we have dismissed him and expelled him and we are asking the partners to appoint a new president,” Amum told Reuters during a visit to the Palouge oil field in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state.

Petrodar is a consortium comprised mainly of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) with a 41 percent stake and Malaysia’s Petronas with 40 percent.

South Sudan seceded from the north officially last July taking 75% of the oil reserves that existed under the united country.

Talks between Khartoum and Juba over the terms by which the latter can export its oil using pipelines in the north have faltered despite intense pressure by African Union (AU) mediation team.

The Sudanese government then decided it can no longer wait for an agreement and started late last year to seize part of Juba’s oil pumped through the pipelines as payment in kind. South Sudan responded by shutting down oil production completely.

South Sudan afterwards accused unspecified oil companies of collaborating with Khartoum in “stealing” and marketing the crude it confiscated. It warned that it will sue any party that is proven to have facilitated this process.

But Petrodar denied any involvement and insisted that it complied with instructions coming from Juba.

In a related issue the Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti held talks today with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and handed him a letter from president Omer Hassan al-Bashir on enhancing political ties and cooperation on investments and oil.

Karti also met with Petronas’s CEO and discussed with him obstacles facing the company’s operations particularly in South Sudan and offered Khartoum’s help to ease any difficulties for the Malaysian company.

(ST)

Article source: http://www.sudantribune.com/Head-of-Petrodar-oil-company,41676

February 21, 2012 — After independence of South Sudan from the Republic of the Sudan six months ago, the people of the South (say some) have started to misbehave towards other non-South Sudanese or foreigners on the ground that they aren’t part of them. The tendency is building that aliens are slowly taking up opportunities when the locals should have been the one benefiting. There are frequent reports of incidences against aliens by individuals among our society, veritable or otherwise.

Invariably, the people that do such offences are reported to be law enforcing agencies, especially police and the security personnel. People say they have seen these estrange officers on our entering roads, home states and around our cities harassing and intimidating our brothers from East Africa for reasons that are largely financial. But others are on the extreme.

Our new nation is engraved on the principles of human dignity and pride of an African man or woman; and hence unfortunate to routinely hear malevolence practices among our people about discrimination and the like on aliens. Among us, we have had different colors: Greeks, Turks, people from Lebanon or Arabs descent, Western Sudanese, name it whose future lies around here. We called them Southerners and they are identified with us in every aspects pertaining South Sudan. Though their numbers are insignificance, and anytime they could still go back to their places of origin, they formed part of us, as they participated fully during the referendum exercise, and we all celebrated the big event together on July 9, 2011.

Generally, Southerners have no problem with anyone around the world except Islamic fanatics in Khartoum. The world in fact is identifying with us, and that is why they stayed with us during tough times until the time of our independence. We must not make damning errors assuming that we are out of the wood. We were once hosted and cared by the same people we now see them on our streets. When we were on their cities as refugees, we were at home with them and this should be reciprocated.

Therefore the few South Sudanese that are bending to harass our friends across our land are a big let down to our nation building. It is possible to apply law without harassing, intimidating, shouting or yelling to anyone. Civilized people do things in a manner that gives away nothing but respect.

Shared Experience

I happened to be on a weekend tour of the road leading out of Gumbo in Juba, and what my eyes saw there was a stark shame against the noble people of South Sudan. I witnessed a police officer at the so-called Immigration Check Point shouting out his lungs to a driver of one of the buses coming from Uganda, and within no minutes he rushed to the window of the driver. Then he quickly turned to passengers of that bus. The goof (police officer in question) was speaking wanting English and somewhere the travelers find their way out one by one with papers peeking out from their hands, while bags hanged on their shoulders. The papers are called Immigration Documents or ’waraga’.

The man yelled at passengers with a rough tone asking everyone to open his/her bag, and everyone obeyed. I disembarked immediately from my car (call it office car) and went to the chalice ‘boy’ peeping through dirty pieces of men and women alike. I motioned him to come aside for a discussion, he grudgingly did.

I look straight to his swampy face, and went he opened his mouth to say something like ’keef’ or ’hi’, I almost bang my head on another street girl selling sweets. I realized he never had water touching his mouth in the morning due probably to bibulous factor, let alone a brush. I asked him whether he could apply decorum about so private matters of men and women, but before he answered me he had wanted to know whom am I, and what am I doing there against his ‘official duties’. His face changed and looked me up and then charged forward a little, but he murmured and somewhere a young officer so blue in his police attire raised his voice in a vernacular, and suddenly the officer in question disappeared into thin air, but not completely as his breath haunted me for a while.

The Officer (not the ratty above) talked the matter up in a more reasonable and perspicacious fashion, something I didn’t expect from a person who claimed to be from Bor (he introduced himself that way anyway). I reasoned that there is a need to either enlist a female officer to check bags for female travelers or else sought a technology in this case. He nodded and I thank him, and we parted ways.

While driving back from Gumbo on a beautiful road down to the bridge, the episode of having failed to talk to the rude young man fully after all was boiling up in my head like a crime. I have been hearing people decrying the way our security officers treat aliens, but I never paid a damn attention. This weekend I was shocked to find it myself that we are doing wrong things behind the backs of our priests and government officials.

While we were in the bush fighting for our rights, we had few cases of aliens mistreat or kill. Whoever then that came to us could still remember us fondly.

But before cooling my head at Di Vinci Hotel (Juba), a friend called to tell me that some Sudanese traders (Northern Sudanese) were mugged in Malakiya the same night. Gangsters arrived there and shot in the air before they walked away with so much money. My throat was thick with lump of anger , as I gutted it with shame hovering my little head. I left , having cursed Gen. Titus Achuil (Police Inspector General) who failed to discipline his men at the Rajaf John Garang Training Camp.

The story am driving you at my people is that we were once living among these people peacefully, pockets of mistreatment notwithstanding. If it weren’t the sheltering and the protection we badly then needed from our brothers East Africa and beyond we won’t have arrived thus far. Police character is an international one and our police must conform to that standard. They got to learn to act politely but assertively on people found against the law, not through harassment or beating. The new nation police must not spoil our beautiful name because of few pounds on the pockets of our brothers from other part of Africa. It makes us small in the eyes of others. We are people of great history and sanity must be preserved.

The Police Unit should probe and apprehend individuals that are engage in such dirty job of extortion money in the name of ‘waraga’. Foreigners know well that if you want to cross over to another country you got to have a clearance papers (immigration status/papers) and if the there are illegal immigrants, the best way to go is to apply the law more prudently and gently.

But our brothers from East Africa must also play it right in this matter. Some of them come to South without papers, others have their papers expired or forged, and this in any sovereign state is unacceptable, it doesn’t work like that. You will have to go to jail and fine according to the laws governing the immigration situation of that country.

Our people have every reason to live in peace with anyone, but not on the expense of violation of any international immigration situation of another country. They must also relax some rigid immigration policies on children and sick people passing through land or entering their territory. Majority of our students have raised problems about tough laws government immigration in Uganda; this is more of a policy however at higher level and leaders should pick this matter up immediately, and not the subject of this note.

Suggestions

I hereby strongly feel that the issue of harassment by illiterate officers be looked into more seriously. I look forward for an Inquiry to investigate cases of harassment by the police against aliens around our cities, borders and on our streets (am repeating myself). Secondly, there is an urged need to work out ways of releasing piles of trucks entering the country. This is harassment! I could see chains of trucks waiting deep around Juba entry and people say some of these Lorries have been there for days without any clearance. The question is: how did they cross the border to Juba in the first place? Of course someone had bribed his way in and could apply the same to enter Juba or any other destinations.

Third, we need a friendly Immigration Officers, a fresh team to overhaul the current rotten one. Recruitment is the best place to start correcting. There were problems in the recruitment of the Immigration Officers. I thought the newly appointed Head there would do something about the bad guys or put up a plan for change, but alas the man isn’t prepare to conduct single press conference to tell us about his magic in immigration. He is too shy to look at men eyes. The President has made a wrong choice! Please police; leave our brothers from East African alone!

Isaiah Abraham lives in Juba; he’s on Isaiah_abraham@yahoo.co.uk

Article source: http://www.sudantribune.com/South-Sudanese-please-stop,41677

Despite 24% of the 1,375 students who sat the exams in Jonglei failing to pass, the education minister was excited by the results. Illiteracy is a major problem in South Sudan where other 70% of people cannot read or write as a result of neglect and decades on civil war.

A 2005 peace deal led to South Sudan’s independence last year but the new country is struggling to provide security for its civilians. Jonglei state is home to pastoralist communities that often engage in cattle rustling using automatic weapons, many of which are hangover from the Sudanese civil war.

Over 1,000 people died in 2011 alone in Jonglei in raids and counter raids between the Luo Nuer and Murle ethnic groups.

The number killed in the week of fighting that began on Christmas Eve last year when the Luo Nuer advanced on Pibor County is still unclear.

Series of retaliatory attacks followed, including an attack on Duk Padiet, a territory belonging to the Dinka Bor tribe that left nearly 100 people killed according to official figures.

VILLAGES V TOWNS

Primary school examination results show that students in village schools often outperformed those in towns, with candidates from Duk Padiet rated the overall best in Jonglei state, according to results released on Monday in Bor.

The 2011 primary school examinations, taken from January 17—18, 2012 and released on Monday by the ministry education appear to show that the insecurity has not affected all areas of life.

“Our children have actually surprised us with excellent results from the exams which they took in the midst of insecurity,” minister Par said.

Around 140,000 people have been affected by the fighting, according to the UN, with many having to flee their homes. The South Sudanese government has declared Jonglei a disaster area.

Duk Padiet Primary was the best performing school in Jonglei with all candidates passing the exams. Bor county schools including Bor Public, Bor ‘B’, Bor ‘C’ and Anyidi girls’ school and Kongor Primary primary in Twic East county were also amongst the top schools.

Some candidates in Bor county did not take the exams due to displacement, minister Par told a local radio station on Monday evening when he formally announce the results.

“But our children have performed very well. There is evidence that actually the quality of education is improving,” minister Par told reporters at the education ministry earlier on Monday.

DISARMAMENT

South Sudan’s army has deployed around 10,000 soldiers and 5,000 police to Jonglei state to stop the violence and begin disarming civilians. However, it is unclear whether some of the groups in the area, including the Nuer White Army which organised the attack on Pibor will react to the disarmament campaign.

The spokesperson for South Sudan army (SPLA), Col. Philip Aguer, told UN Radio on Monday that disarmament will start soon.

(ST)

Article source: http://www.sudantribune.com/Students-in-conflict-areas-on,41670