Does US mediation between Sudan and South Sudan succeed?

[sudan]

A lack of trust between Sudan and South Sudan has prevented implementation of crucial security and economic deals signed by the two countries two months ago, US special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, Princeton Lyman, said last week at the US embassy in Khartoum.

Following his meetings with the Sudanese officials, Lyman has attributed the lack of trust to South Sudan backed rebellion in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

He warned that obtaining that trust will be difficult unless rebellion backed by South Sudan ends South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

This remark does not necessarily indicate US’s late familiarity or ignorance of the nature of the conflict. Definitely, Washington knows every thing on the joint borders and it will true if say that Washington prefers that the rebellion in the two regions to remain invoked for personal reasons and goals in Sudan. It’s evident that the rebels in the two regions fights with South Sudanese weapons which come or bought by US.

Phoned by Sudan Safari electronic journal, reliable sources said that Lyman was worried over Sudan’s determination and emphasis on the implementation of security arrangements before any other agreements including the oil deal.

But, he finally, came around when he admitted that the core cause of the differences is the lack of trust.

In same time, Washington encourage the flow of the South Sudan’s oil exports via Sudan, because oil for US means life. Khartoum knows that, but it is untimely to judge if Washington will work for the joint cooperation agreement a.

The question is why Lyman has pledged to eliminate the cause of the crisis? Simply, the joint cooperation agreement was political gains for President Obama in the late presidential elections, so Obama administration doesn’t help the failure of the agreement and the return to square one. In the same time, the administration doesn’t want to loose Khartoum or to be at South Sudan’s disposal.

 

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Sudan's President al-Bashir pays historic first visit to So. Sudan...

Sudan's Bashir Pays Historic Visit to South Sudan
April 12, 2013 — Sudanese President Omar al Bashir paid a historic first visit to South Sudan Friday, fueling hopes of peace and cooperation between the two countries, after a tense year that has brought them to the brink of war over oil rights and territorial claims.

During the one-day visit, the Sudanese president met with his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir for talks focussed on the implementation of agreements the two countries signed last year, but only recently began to implement. Kiir described the discussions as cordial, and said that the two leaders pledged to improve security along the border and allow free trade. They also discussed how to share revenues from oil, officials said. The issue has brought the two neighbors to blows in the past and led to South Sudan, which controls most of the oil in the Sudans, to halting production in January last year amid a row with Khartoum over pipeline fees.

The differences were resolved last month when an agreement was signed in Ethiopia. Production resumed days before Bashir's visit. Although they failed to reach a definitive agreement on the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei, they agreed to continue negotiations on the key border area. Bashir said his visit signaled his commitment to peace between the two countries, which once formed the largest country in Africa. After a long civil war ended in 2005, South Sudan voted in a referendum in 2011 to split from Sudan and become an independent nation. Bashir had not set foot in the world's newest nation until Friday. The Sudanese leader was greeted at Juba airport with a guard of honor and red carpet before he and Kiir made their way to the presidential palace in Juba for talks.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir (r.) hugs his Sudanese counterpart Omar al Bashir as he arrives at Juba airport on Friday, April 12, 2013. The Sudanese president was visiting South Sudan for the first time since it split from Sudan in 2011.

In the South Sudanese capital, the visit was met with mixed reactions. James Mabor Gatkuoth, the leader of the opposition National Democratic Front Party, said the visit was an opportunity for the two countries to normalize relations and reach firm agreements on critical issues, like the contested Abyei region. But, he added, not all South Sudanese shared his positive outlook on the visit of Bashir, who is wanted by the international war crimes court in The Hague for allegedly orchestrating atrocities in Darfur. “There are mixed feelings," Gatkuoth said. "Some people feel that, as he’s wanted in the Hague... he doesn’t deserve to be received. But a majority think the peace agreement was made by him, and they’re right to think so.”

Biel Boutros Biel, the executive director of the South Sudan Human Rights Society for Advocacy, dismissed Bashir’s visit as a political move and said he did not expect the visit would improve relations. "We don’t see a reason why people should celebrate Bashir’s visit as a solution to everything. Once he goes back to Khartoum, he’s the same Bashir. "People are still dying... and nobody’s talking about it. They’re just talking that Bashir is coming,” he said.

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President Bashir orders South Sudan border to be opened
12 April 2013 - President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has ordered the border with South Sudan to be opened.

He announced the move on a first visit to the South since its independence. Speaking alongside his southern counterpart, Salva Kiir, Mr Bashir also called for peace and normal relations. Tensions between the two countries, strained after they came to the brink of war last year, have eased recently, but disagreements over oil and territory remain. However, disagreements over oil and territory continue. "I have instructed Sudan's authorities and civil society to open up to their brothers in the Republic of South Sudan," Mr Bashir said in a speech in the southern capital, Juba.

Sudan's president invited Mr Kiir to Khartoum for further talks and he also addressed worshippers at a mosque in Juba. "We won't go back to war," he said. "President Kiir and I agreed that the war was too long." For his part, Mr Kiir said that he and Mr Bashir had agreed to implement all co-operation agreements.

Flashpoint province

The South's independence in 2011 - which followed decades of civil war - left key issues unresolved. South Sudan took with it nearly three-quarters of Sudan's oil production when it declared independence and the two sides fell out over how much the South should pay to export its oil through Sudanese pipelines. At the height of the dispute last year, the South shut down its entire oil output, badly hitting both struggling economies. Oil started flowing again this month after both sides struck a deal in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in March, helping to ease tensions.

They also agreed to withdraw troops from their border area. A demilitarised buffer zone is being set up, with the intention of improving security. However, the two leaders still need to agree on who owns the flashpoint Abyei province and other regions along their disputed 2,000km (1,200 mile) border. Territorial disputes, border demarcation and the pipeline fee issue are expected to feature again in future talks.

BBC News - President Bashir orders South Sudan border to be opened

 

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So. Sudan full of lost kids...

Nearly 15,000 lost children seek parents in chaos of South Sudan's war
Friday 17th February, 2017: In the chaos of South Sudan's civil war, it took three years for Nyagonga Machul to find her lost children.

Machul had travelled from her village to the capital when President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fired his deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, in 2013. The dismissal triggered a civil war in the world's newest nation that has increasingly been fought along ethnic lines. Machul found herself cut off from her son Nhial, now aged 14 and the protector of the family; 10-year-old Ruai and 8-year-old Machiey, brothers who love board games and swimming; 6-year-old Nyameer with her shy smile; and Nyawan, now four but then the much-loved baby.

For years, Machul prayed for news. In December, she heard her children were alive - but far away in Bentiu, the northern gateway to the nation's oil fields. More than a thousand 1,000 km (620 miles) of battlefield stretched between them. Machul had left the children with their grandmother, but one night gunmen had attacked their village. "I was in bed sleeping. All of a sudden I heard the sound of gunshots, then people shouting, screaming," said Nhial. The panicked children scattered and hid near the river Nile. Wandering back, they found each other, but not their grandmother. They decided to flee. They walked through swamps, in chest-deep water infested with snakes and crocodiles. They begged food from families with little to spare.

Nyagonga Machul, 38, sews a table cloth as Ruai Mario, 10, touches the head of his sister Nyawan Mario, 4, in their home at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Protection of Civilian site (CoP) in Juba, South Sudan​

Then a former neighbour, Nyabika Temdor, took them in, camping with them on a tiny island in the Nile. But gunmen struck again and they ran. "I had to pay someone to carry the little ones, as they couldn't walk," Temdor said. After four days, they reached a camp for displaced families in Bentiu. The sprawling settlement of 120,000 people is bordered by barbed wire and watchtowers. That is where CINA found them. A local organisation supported by UNICEF, case workers painstakingly trace separated families. They enter the names of lost children into a UNICEF supported database that holds nearly 15,000 names. Having a parent vastly improves the long-term chances of a child's survival, said Marianna Zaichykova, a spokeswoman for UNICEF. But the programme is chronically underfunded.

Last year, reunifications dropped by 50 percent because there was not enough money to trace families, Zaichykova said. Machul was lucky. UNICEF arranged for the children to fly to Juba this week. Their mother waited for them, in a tent made of sticks and plastic that looked just like the one they left in Bentiu. She dappled drops of water on her children's faces in a traditional blessing. Her friends began to sing. And then she opened her arms for her children. "God has answered my prayers," she said. "I am so happy." For a Wider Image photo essay of the story, click Mother reunited with children after five-year search

Nearly 15,000 lost children seek parents in chaos of South Sudan's war

 

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Aid workers slaughtered in So. Sudan...

Death toll in attack on South Sudan aid workers rises to 7
Mar 27,`17) -- The death toll of an attack on aid workers in South Sudan has risen to seven, with the news that the driver also died.

David Kim Choop was driving the vehicle when he and six aid workers were ambushed and killed on Saturday, March 25th. The four South Sudanese and three Kenyans worked for a local NGO called GRADO (Grass Roots Empowerment for Development Organization) and were attacked while on a routine food convoy from Juba, the capital, to Pibor.

The ambush caused the highest number of aid workers killed in a single incident since South Sudan's civil war began in 2013. At least 12 aid workers have been killed so far this year and at least 79 killed since 2013, according to the U.N. "We are extremely saddened by this undeserved event," said Pius Ojara, director of the NGO Forum in South Sudan. "These are people who were here to serve the population." Ojara said police are investigating to find out who killed the aid workers.

Relatives of the six aid workers who were ambushed and killed grieve as they wait to collect and bury the bodies of their loved ones, outside the morgue in Juba, South Sudan Monday, March 27, 2017. The ambush of the six aid workers took place Saturday on the road from Juba, the capital, to Pibor, and is the latest of several attacks on aid workers in the country where at least 12 aid workers have been killed so far this year and 79 since civil war began in 2013​

Grieving families gathered Monday outside the morgue in Juba to collect and bury their dead. "This is very painful for all of us," said Levis Kori. Kori's 30-year-old brother John Riti, was killed in the attack. "We're not enemies," said Kori. "They were humanitarians there to do good. They're not soldiers they have no guns."

News from The Associated Press