INTERVIEW-South Sudan's outgoing army chief says Khartoum arming rebels
Mon May 5, 2014 1:31pm GMT
* Sudan says has no dealings with South Sudan rebels
* General says Sudan wants to destabilise southern neighbour
* Washington, neighbours fear slip into genocide
By Drazen Jorgic
JUBA, May 5 (Reuters) - South Sudan's outgoing army chief General James Hoth
Mai accused neighbour and old foe Sudan on Monday of arming rebels fighting
his troops in an increasingly ethnic conflict - allegations quickly
dismissed by Khartoum.
Thousands of civilians have been killed during more than four months of
fighting which the United States and regional powers warn could spiral into
full-blown genocide if left unchecked.
Mai told Reuters it was an "open secret" that the Khartoum government was
backing insurgent leader Riek Machar in a bid to destabilise South Sudan,
which seceded from Sudan in 2011 after decades of north-south war.
"Khartoum has been helping (Machar's) militia all along," Mai said at his
residence opposite the presidential palace in the South Sudanese capital
Juba.
Sudanese authorities denied having any link to the rebels.
"We cooperate with the South Sudanese government as the only legitimate
government and we don't deal with the rebels," Sudanese army spokesman
Al-Sawarmi Khalid told Reuters.
The conflict started with fighting between rival groups of soldiers in Juba
mid December and quickly spread across the country.
It is widely seen as the result of a long-running political rivalry between
President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy, Machar, exacerbated by tensions
between their ethnic groups - Kiir's Dinka people and Machar's Nuer.
Most senior South Sudanese figures have up to now not implicated Khartoum or
any other external player.
But Sudan and South Sudan have regularly accused each other of supporting
rebels in each other territories in past conflicts to fight proxy battles
over territory and oil rights. Mutual distrust remains deep.
Mai - who is due to step down this week after Kiir gave him his notice last
month - said Machar's rebels had amassed troops inside Sudan before crossing
the border and attacking the northern oil town of Bentiu in April.
No official explanation was given for Mai's dismissal, but analysts said it
could have been due to the fact he was a Nuer, or because the fight against
the rebels had suffered setbacks.
"(The rebels) have a safe haven in the north and get supplied there," said
Mai.
He said three trucks full of ammunition, food and other supplies were
captured in Bentiu in January when SPLA government troops first routed the
rebels there. Mai showed no evidence to prove Sudan had provided the
materials.
Unmarked planes had also dropped supplies to rebel camps, but it was hard to
identify who was behind this, he added.
HISTORY OF BLAME
Machar was not immediately available for comment.
One senior Western diplomat told Reuters late last month he thoughy Bashir
was playing both sides in the South Sudan conflict, trying to sow chaos and
show that South Sudan could not manage itself.
"Khartoum is giving weapons to Machar while publicly denying any support. At
the same time (Bashir) is trying to appease Kiir. There are fighters
supported by Bashir in South Sudan," said the diplomat.
"Khartoum has never accepted the independence of the south."
Other diplomats, however, say there is scant evidence of Khartoum directly
arming rebels. They say South Sudan's army has a history of blaming Bashir
to cover up its own failings.
South Sudan's army battled rebels in and around Bentiu on Monday, hitting
hopes for renewed peace efforts days after U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry visited to try and revive faltering peace talks.
Both sides have been accused of atrocities.
Mai acknowledged SPLA soldiers were involved in the "killing of innocent
people in Juba" early in the conflict, but said rebel massacres outweighed
any crimes committed by his men.
Mai, 54, regarded as the most prominent Nuer and an emblem of Dinka-Nuer
cooperation, told Reuters his dismissal came as a surprise. He will be
replaced by Paul Malong, said by analysts to be a Kiir loyalist and Dinka
hardliner. (Additional reporting by Khaled Abdel Aziz in Khartoum; Editing
by Richard Lough and Andrew Heavens)
Kerry keeps pressure on S.Sudan rebel leader as fighting rages
Mon May 5, 2014 3:42pm GMT
* Kerry wants Machar and Kiir to talk face to face
* Bentiu scene of ethnic massacre last month
* Both sides to contemplate "month of tranquillity" (Recasts with Kerry's
comments, progress in peace talks)
By Andrew Green and Phil Stewart
JUBA/LUANDA, May 5 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threatened
sanctions against South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar on Monday if he
spurned peace negotiations, as government forces battled for control of the
northern oil town of Bentiu.
Kerry flew to South Sudan on Friday to revive talks that have made scant
progress in months. He secured a commitment from President Salva Kiir to fly
to Ethiopia for face-to-face talks with Machar, who held off from promising
to take part.
In a rare sign of progress in talks dogged by deep mutual mistrust,
government and rebel negotiators in Ethiopia's capital said they had agreed
to consider a "month of tranquillity", to start on Monday, and recommitted
themselves to opening aid corridors.
Machar told the Sudan Tribune on Saturday he thought a face-to-face meeting
with Kiir could be "counter-productive". But Kerry, who said he had read the
interview, noted that Machar had not ruled out meeting his rival.
"He has a fundamental decision to make. If he decides not to and
procrastinates, then we have a number of different options that are
available to us," Kerry told reporters in Angola on the last stop of a
nearly week-long trip to Africa.
The conflict erupted in mid-December after long political rivalry between
Kiir and Machar, whom Kiir sacked as his deputy in July. The unrest has
exacerbated tensions between their ethnic groups - Kiir's Dinka people and
Machar's Nuer.
On Monday, the army and rebels both claimed control of Bentiu after two days
of heavy fighting in the town, scene of an ethnic massacre last month which
heightened fears of genocide in the world's newest nation.
"MONTH OF TRANQUILLITY"
Government forces overran fighters loyal to Machar on Sunday but the rebels
launched a counter-offensive early on Monday. A military spokesman said the
army had fended off the attack, but rebels said they had driven SPLA
soldiers out of the town.
"There will be fighting around Bentiu. The SPLA is trying to establish full
control over Unity state and that will take some time," SPLA spokesman
Colonel Philip Aguer told Reuters before negotiators agreed to consider a
month of tranquillity.
Under the terms of the deal signed in Addis Ababa, the two sides would
consider beginning such a truce on Monday, to allow civilians to move to
places of safety and plant crops.
It was not clear when precisely a truce might come into effect, or when the
sides might finalise agreement on it.
South Sudan's outgoing army chief General James Hoth Mai accused neighbour
and old foe Sudan on Monday of arming the rebels fighting his troops - an
allegation quickly dismissed by Khartoum.
Thousands of people have been killed and more than a million forced from
their homes since the violence erupted four months ago, prompting the United
Nations to warn of a possible famine in parts of the country, which is about
the size of France or Texas.
Peace talks brokered by the regional IGAD grouping have gone nowhere since a
January ceasefire deal which never took hold.
"We would have wished to sign today the entire agreement recommitting the
parties to observing the whole cessation of hostilities agreement," said
Nhial Deng Nhial, head of the South Sudan government delegation in Ethiopia.
Taban Deng Gai, his counterpart from the rebel camp, said the accord was
encouraging.
Kerry's visit to Juba, his first as Washington's most senior diplomat, was
part of a renewed diplomatic push to end a conflict increasingly being
fought along ethnic lines.
Fears of a descent into genocide grew after the United Nations said rebels
had massacred hundreds of civilians in Bentiu last month. Days later,
residents of Bor, a predominantly Dinka town, attacked Nuer camped in a U.N.
base.
Oil output, South Sudan's economic lifeline, has been cut by a third to
about 160,000 barrels per day since fighting began.
Oil firms operating in South Sudan include China National Petroleum Corp,
India's ONGC Videsh and Malaysia's Petronas. (Additional reporting by
Shrikesh Laxmidas in Launda and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Writing by
Richard Lough; Editing by Edmund Blair and Andrew Roche)