Khartoum hand in south Sudan unrest unproven: analysts

KHARTOUM, Sept 23, 2009 (AFP) – Whether scrambling for access to natural resources, settling ethnic scores, fighting over cattle or a sombre plan by Khartoum to sink the south back into civil war, the causes of the resurgence of violence in south Sudan remain unclear.
Every month since the beginning of the year has brought its share of ethnic bloodshed in south Sudan, a region still recovering from Africa’s longest-running civil war.
Hundreds have been killed in different parts of the south, but the reasons behind the killings differ.
“In Rumbek area of Lakes State, there has been a sort of escalating set of feuds between different sections of Dinka you can describe as tribal,” Douglas Johnson, a British expert in south Sudan told AFP by telephone.
But in the neighbouring state of Jonglei, “definitely there are remnants of old government militias who seem to get access to new supplies of weapons and are operating with an agenda that is not related necessarily to local disputes,” he said.
On Sunday, more than 100 people were killed in Jonglei when members of the Lou section of Nuer ethnic group raided the village of Duk Padiet, where the Hol section of the Dinka form the majority community.
Clashes between rival ethnic groups in south Sudan erupt frequently — often sparked by cattle rustling and disputes over natural resources, while others are in retaliation for previous attacks.
However, a series of recent raids has shocked many, with an apparent sharp rise in attacks on women and children, as well as the targeting of homesteads.
In the latest violence, “it is quite clear that the focus of the attack was on the organised forces themselves,” said David Gressly, regional coordinator for the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) in charge of monitoring the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between north and south.
Officials from south Sudan have accused President Omar al-Beshir’s ruling National Congress Party of arming militias such as the Lou Nuer in order to destabilise the south ahead of nationwide elections set for April 2010 and a referendum in south Sudan on independence from the north due in 2011.
“There has been very, very little evidence presented to basically prove that these allegations are true,” said EJ Hogendoorn, International Crisis Group’s Horn of Africa project director.
But “we’re not saying it is not true,” said Hogendoorn, who also points to internal tensions among southern forces.
At the end of the civil war, several southern militias — some of them formerly sponsored by the Khartoum government — were integrated into the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, the mainstream rebel group that now leads the autonomous regional government in the south.
“That integration is not completed and there continues to be friction,” said Hogendoorn.
“Many of these units remain much more loyal to individuals within the SPLA or the SPLM than the institutions themselves. So there is a real fear that these units could in one way become independent militias again,” he added.
Historical rivalries with the region’s largest ethnic group, the Dinka of late SPLM/A leader John Garang, prompted some Nuer to form a breakaway rebel faction and Khartoum sponsored militias among other dissident ethnic groups throughout the 1983-2005 civil war.
Since the war ended, security forces have launched several attempts to seize arms across the south, a region awash with automatic weapons left over from the devastating conflict in which an estimated 1.5 million people died and well over four million more feld their homes.
However, previous disarmament campaigns have been criticised for exacerbating violence. Heavy-handed but ineffective, they have left some regions at risk of attack from their still armed neighbours.
More than 2,000 people have died and 250,000 been displaced in inter-ethnic violence across south Sudan since January, according to the United Nations, which says the rate of violent deaths now surpasses that in Darfur.
by Guillaume Lavallee