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Gold/Mining/Energy : ARAKIS: HIGH RISK OIL PLAY (AKSEF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLLefty who wrote (7691)	1/31/1998 9:41:00 PM
From: Douglas V. Fant	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9164

LLLefty, here's the latest from the Reuters Correspondent, Nairobi-based as you noted, who has followed the war for some time.... I now wonder if Bol was actually an SPLA Member all the time, and used his "relationship" and so-called signature of peace treaty with Khartoum to feed information to the SPLA Forces.... BTW- This is Bol's Army Unit under Bol's command which is attacking the NIF Military Junta Forces in Wau..... FOCUS-Sudan rebels say govt controls Wau airport 12:22 p.m. Jan 31, 1998 Eastern By Matthew Bigg NAIROBI, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Sudan rebels said on Saturday that government forces had recaptured the airport in the southern city of Wau after two days of fighting. Rebel forces still controlled several sectors of Wau, the second largest city in the south and were able to shell the airport with anti-aircraft guns, said Yasir Arman, spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Arman was speaking by telephone from the Eritrean capital Asmara, headquarters of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella group of anti-Khartoum forces including the SPLA. State television in the Sudanese capital Khartoum said on Friday night that 500 SPLA rebels attacked Wau in the Bahr el-Ghazal region in southwest Sudan at around midnight on Wednesday. It said the rebels ''were repulsed and heavy losses were inflicted on them.'' State television showed Wau airport and residential areas, and said that planes were still flying to the town. The SPLA said on Thursday its forces had captured Wau, but on Saturday Justin Yaac, SPLA representative to East Africa, told Reuters: ''There is now very fierce fighting over the airport. This is their lifeline and when it is over the airport will not be usable.'' Yaac said fighting was focused on the airport, the army headquarters at Girinti and Aweil town, 150 km (90 miles) northwest of Wau. Wau, about 425 km (250 miles) northeast of the southern capital Juba, is also the southern end of the key railway that links south Sudan to Khartoum in the north. A government military spokesman confirmed that fighting was still raging around Aweil and the town of Gogrial, also in the Bahr el-Ghazal region. Yaac said that both government and rebel forces had retreated from Aweil, leaving it with no one in effective control. The Sudanese government did not comment on rebel reports that SPLA forces were under the command of Kerubino Kuanyin Bol. Bol defected from the SPLA after a major split with SPLA leader John Garang, signing an agreement with the government last April. This month he was offered a vice-presidency in Khartoum's Southern Coordination Council (SCC), one product of that agreement, but rejoined the SPLA after negotiations. Bol's own militia force, which is based in Wau, amounts to around 5,000 men, while the SPLA said it was bringing in reinforcements to add to its own 2,000 men based in a village just north of the city, a source with long experience of Sudan said. The government meanwhile had been beefing-up its presence in Wau for several weeks, the source said. ''Garang is in a win-win situation at the moment. If Kerubino loses it is not really an SPLA defeat, because it is Kerubino's militia who are fighting,'' the source said. Yaac said 108 government prisoners captured by the SPLA since the start of the fighting had been moved back from the front lines. SPLA officials and aid workers say the rebel movement is preparing an assault on Juba, prior to the reopening of peace talks with the government in the Kenyan capital in April. At peace talks in Nairobi last November, the government said it wanted a federation of north and south and accepted the principle of a referendum on self-determination. The SPLA wants looser link between north and south and a vote on self-determination in two years. Around 1.3 million people have died of war and famine since the conflict restarted in 1983. ^REUTERS@ FWIW, the SPLA makes a special effort to avoid any injuries impacts in the fighting upon foreigners... and to the best of my knowledge, no major roads are mined, particularly along the Eritrean Border.... Also I'd be surpised if Executive Outcomes was assisting the NIF Military Junta Forces since Mandela of South Africa supports the SPLA movement.... Sincerely, Doug F.