Sudan: Agence France Presse reports
Agence France Presse, May 31
General Khetim said that the mainstream rebel
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) "tried to
stir up" people in mainly animist and Christian
areas to blow up a pipeline stretching for 1,610
kilometres (about 1,000 miles), thorugh six states,
from the southeast to the Red Sea.
However, "all sectors of the people are now
protecting the petroleum, not only the armed
forces," according to Khetim, who said the
armed forces "are capable of defending the
homeland and its soil however long the battle is."
Africa's largest nation is rich in oil, but
more than 15 years of war between successive
regimes and the SPLA, which is seeking to
end Arabised, Islamic domination of the
south, has severely disrupted production as
well as leaving an estimated one million dead
and hundreds of thousands of people displaced.
The Moslem fundamentalist-backed
government of President Omar al-Beshir, who
first came to power in a June 1989 military
coup, wants to encourage a renewal of
foreign investment, the resumption of oil
production and other activity as well as
mending fences with its neighbours.
It has in the past two years seen through
legislation enabling the return of political
parties under a new constitution, though
leaders of the movements banned after the
coup, who have joined the SPLA in a National
Democratic Alliance (NDA), have dismissed
the measures as far from sufficent.
The eminence grise of the regime, Hassan
al-Turabi, howefer- this week said that
petroleum and other development projects
have "encouraged huge foreign investment in
Sudan, and several nations which used to
take a hardline against Sudan have now
eased their stances to catch up with this
investment bid."
Turabi, who is secretary-general of the ruling
National Congress movement also told a rally
at Nyala in the western South Darfur state
that people must remain vigilant since "the
Islamic experiment in Sudan has become a
target of conspiracies by enemies," the
official Al-Anbaa daily reported Friday.
Khetim, for his part, told the mujahedeen
fighters that the army backs current efforts
for national reconciliation, but warned that
moves to bring this about "will not be at the
expense of the country's territories and
constitutional and political gains".
With the completion of technical aspects of oil
production, Khetim said, " the challenge has
now become of a security and military nature."
The muhajedeen forces were set to join the
special brigade being formed by the Popular
Defence Forces, which consist mainly of
militia units set up by Khartoum to operate
with the regular army.
Oil itself is an evident source of much
conflict in Sudan, recently in the southern
Al-Wihda State, where battles have recently
been reported for control over which faction
guards the resources.
The official SUNA news agency on Friday said
the army had officially confirmed that an
allied militia leader, Tito Biel, on May 3
defected with his men to the mainstream
southern SPLA rebels led by Colonel John
Garang. Late last month, Biel began attacking oil
installations in Al-Wihda State, according to
an unnamed military headquarters quoted by SUNA. |
