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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters War whoops in Sudan
By Gamal NkrumahThis week, Sudanese government forces stepped up punitive sorties over territories controlled by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in southern and western Sudan. The fighting is reportedly most intense in the oil-producing areas of the country. The SPLA leader, John Garang, has long said that disrupting the flow of oil, which is currently transported through a 1,600-kilometre-long pipeline to Port Sudan, Sudan's chief port on the Red Sea, was one of his group's main military strategies.
The Sudanese government accuses the SPLA, Sudan's most powerful armed opposition group, of receiving military backing from Uganda and Eritrea. Khartoum promptly dispatched Sudanese Defence Minister General Bakri Hassan Saleh to meet with his Eritrean counterpart Sebhat Efrem. Last week, Mahmoud Hamed Ibrahim, governor of Sudan's eastern Kasala province bordering Eritrea, accused Asmara of amassing troops along its 500-kilometre-long border with Sudan. Eritrea, which emerged badly bruised from the war that developed out of its border dispute with Ethiopia, vehemently denied the charge, insisting that it does not harbour ill-intentions towards Sudan. Even though many Sudanese opposition groups, including the SPLA and Sudanese refugees -- both northern and southern -- have taken up residence in Eritrea, Eritrean officials deny that they are supplying arms and ammunition to the SPLA.
The SPLA currently controls a vast sweep of territory stretching from the Ugandan-Sudanese border in the southern-most part of Sudan, along the border between Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and southern Chad as well as pockets in the Nuba Mountains of western Sudan and Blue Nile province near the Ethiopian border in the east of this vast African country, Africa's largest. The government launched a counter-offensive this month and accused the SPLA of attacking government- held areas in southern Sudan such as Gorial, Kwangina and Awiel.
In past years fighting has intensified before the onset of the rainy season which starts in June. There is traditionally a lull in the fighting during the peak of the rainy season in July and August. This year, however, the fighting has continued unabated. One of the areas most impacted by the fighting is the oil-rich Heglig region in the western Upper Nile province. By all accounts, the battles there are especially ferocious, with Sudanese government reports conceding that government forces suffered a death toll of over 1,000 troops since the SPLA launched an offensive in April. The SPLA claims far higher fatality figures among government troops -- around 3,000. Observers believe that the SPLA is making a bid to dislodge government forces from the oil-producing regions of southern Sudan.
The fighting has also cost the government millions of dollars in lost revenue. Several important oil fields have closed down such as oil fields 5, 6, 9, 10, 13 and 16 since 5 June.
Two factors contribute to the renewed strength and vigour of the SPLA forces. First, the rapprochement between several splinter SPLA groups who in the past fought alongside government forces against the SPLA. The aerial bombardment of civilian areas prompted previously rival southern groups to join forces and rally behind Garang's SPLA. The SPLA charges Khartoum with breaking its own moratorium on aerial bombardments which have taken a horrendous toll on civilian life and on infrastructure. Much of southern Sudan has plunged into economic and social chaos. Humanitarian relief supplies, another constant cause of bickering between Khartoum and the SPLA, have been repeatedly interrupted. There are several hunger-stricken areas in southern Sudan which have become totally dependent on relief assistance. The World Food Programme has just cautioned that an estimated 1.7 million people are in desperate need of food aid in southern Sudan.
Meanwhile, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir this week warned that humanitarian relief planes will not be allowed to take supplies to southern Sudan if they take off from neighbouring countries. Only relief supplies originating from government-held territories will be permitted to land in southern Sudan, Al-Bashir announced. Khartoum has in the past repeatedly suspended the work of Operation Lifeline Sudan, the main relief umbrella organisation grouping UN and other charitable organisations. Al-Bashir claims that relief operations are used as a conduit for smuggling arms and ammunition to SPLA forces.
The second factor contributing to SPLA advances in the battlefields of southern Sudan is the emergence of military leaders of the calibre of Yusuf Kuwa, who hails from the Nuba Mountains in western Sudan, and who have opened new battlefronts in that area of the country. The new SPLA battalions in the Nuba Mountains have staged a stubborn rearguard action against government forces. Sudanese government forces have been quick to realise the new menace to their forces from western Sudan and have targeted the Nuba Mountains and the province of Kordofan in its aerial bombardment offensives. SPLA officials say that the government's summer offensive failed, and that it is the civilian population, not the battle-hardened SPLA fighters who seem to have borne the brunt of the government's punitive measures.
It is in this context that Khartoum has called upon the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) -- a grouping of east African governments seeking to broker peace in Sudan -- to strongly condemn what Khartoum describes as cease-fire violations by the SPLA. Uganda and Eritrea, the two countries allegedly assisting the SPLA are IGAD members.
