Sudan, South Sudan deny responsibility for tension-building actions

Officials from Sudan and South Sudan on Tuesday both denied wrongdoing during a recent escalation of tensions in the border region between their nations. The statement came during a meeting of the UN Security Council on the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), which is designed to help the new nation consolidate peace and protect civilians. South Sudan was formerly part of Sudan, but after decades of civil war declared its independence in July under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005. Though the war between the Sudanese government and the southern Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) has ended, tensions still exist between north and south on issues such as border demarcation, oil revenue and external debt sharing, and the sovereignty of the Abyei region. Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, the permanent representative of Sudan to the UN, denied accusations that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) dropped bombs in Yida, in South Sudanese territory on Nov. 10. "I wish to assure you that we never will carry out any military activity inside the territories of the government of South Sudan," he said. Herve Ladsous, UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations who also spoke at the Tuesday council meeting, said that UNMISS dispatched a verification mission to Yida on Nov. 13. "A joint team of civilian and military personnel, including mine action, confirmed that four bombs were dropped on 10 November, " he said. Ladsous explained that different eyewitnesses said they saw the white Antonov aircraft that dropped the bombs coming from Sudan. He added that he could confirm that bombing also took place in Quffa, in the Upper Nile state of South Sudan on Nov. 8. Ladsous told the council that the UN has received reports on the establishment of a new military alliance of Darfur rebel movements and the northern wing of the SPLM, aiming to overthrow Sudan's government. "This represents a step further in a pattern of escalation as is counter productive," said Ladsous. "The United Nations continues to stress that all parties to the different conflicts between the government of Sudan and its peripheries need to return to the table of negotiations and resolve their differences through political dialogue." Osman said that Khartoum is certain that South Sudan is behind the new rebel alliance. "Regrettably enough the government of South Sudan continues to support the rebel movements and that it has supervised two meetings in both Yei and Juba which resulted in the establishment of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front, of which the declared objective is to topple the government in the north through military action," he said. Osman added that Sudan has received a confession from a defected official of the SPLM that members of the group were shipping military equipment to rebel forces in South Kordofan, a region in the north. David Buom Choat, acting permanent representative of South Sudan to the UN, denied charges that South Sudan supports any rebellion in the north, explaining that his government does not, as a matter of policy provide military assistance to opposition forces operating in Sudan. "This allegation has no ground and is baseless," Choat said. " We stress categorically that there is no element of truth in the claims of accusations brought forth by Khartoum, nor any sponsorship by the government of the Republic of South Sudan for any hostile activities to topple the government in Khartoum militarily or otherwise." According to Ladsous, the African Union high-level panel chaired by Thabo Mbeki has called for a meeting of the Joint Political and Security Mechanism between Sudan and South Sudan on Nov. 18. The security mechanism is a bilateral body, meeting at the cabinet level that is designed to solve disputes and ease tensions between the two countries. "I wish to urge both governments to seize this opportunity to de-escalate the current situation and move swiftly towards the establishment of the joint border monitoring mechanism they had agreed upon on 30 July 2011," Ladsous said. Additionally, he said, the parties will meet in the coming weeks to discuss the outstanding issues of the CPA in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia. The under-secretary-general reaffirmed that in the view of the UN, only political dialogue will solve the outstanding issues between Khartoum and Juba. "There is no military solution to the Sudan conflicts and all military actions only endanger the lives of innocent civilians who deserved a return to peace and stability after so many years of fighting," he said.