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Gold/Mining/Energy : TLM.TSE Talisman Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Todd R. Levine who wrote (279)	5/9/1999 12:35:00 PM
From: Tomas	Respond to of 1713

Calm reported restored in oil-rich Sudan state By Alfred Taban KHARTOUM, May 9 (Reuters) - Calm has returned to Sudan's southern state of Unity after clashes involving government troops and militias fighting for control of its oilfields, a commander of a militia allied to Khartoum said on Sunday. No independent account was immediately available of last week's confused fighting in the area which is central to the Islamist government's plans to start exporting crude oil next month. Francis Gatlouk, deputy operations commander for warlord Paulino Matip, told Reuters clashes had stopped after a militia force, coordinating secretly with the main rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), had been driven out of Ler, the state's second largest town, on Thursday. Gatlouk said the force led by Tito Byel had kidnapped four Chinese oil workers but released them the next day. "The four Chinese and several Sudanese were seized by Byel at the start of the fighting on May 2 at Koch, about 50 km (30 miles) from (the state capital of) Bentiu," he said. Gatlouk said Byel's force had taken 10 oil company vehicles from Koch to ferry SPLA fighters to front lines. The trucks were also returned to the oil firms within a day. He said Byel's fighters were now in the Mayen Dit area 55 km (35 miles) south of the town and in neighbouring Rumbek state. On Sunday Khartoum newspapers quoted armed forces spokesman Lieutenant-General Mohamed Osman Yassin as saying the government was fully in control in Unity state. The government is devoting considerable resources to a project to complete an oil pipeline from Unity to Port Sudan on the Red Sea to allow exports to begin by June 30. Gatlouk said the fighting began when Byel's men, ostensibly part of a pro-government militia alliance known as the South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF), attacked Matip's forces at Bau, oil workers at Koch and government troops in Ler last Sunday in a coordinated attempt to seize the oilfields with SPLA help. "Byel has been working with the SPLA since the Wunlit conference of Febuary and March this year and one of the secret agreements of the conference was the seizure of the oilfields," Gatlouk said. He was referring to a conference that took place in SPLA-held territory and called for hostilities between the Dinka and Nuer, the south's largest tribes, to cease. No comment from the SSDF or SPLA was immediately available. sudan.net