* Khartoum parliament urges quick recapture of oilfield
* Border clashes raise spectre of relapse into war
* South Sudan says province hit by air strikes
(Adds Sudan denying bombing in Unity state)
By Khalid Abdelaziz and Ulf Laessing
KHARTOUM/JUBA, April 16 (Reuters) – Sudan’s parliament
branded South Sudan an “enemy” on Monday and called for a swift
recapture of a disputed oil-producing region, as rising border
tensions pushed the old civil war foes closer to another
full-blown conflict.
South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan last July, seized the
contested Heglig oilfield last Tuesday, prompting its northern
neighbour to vow to recapture the area by “all means”.
The oilfield is vital to Sudan’s economy, producing about
half of the 115,000 barrel-per-day output that remained in its
control after South Sudan’s secession.
Addressing the Khartoum parliament, speaker Ahmed Ibrahim
al-Tahir accused the South’s ruling party – the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement (SPLM) – of posing a security threat to the
north.
“We declare that we will confront the SPLM until we end its
rule of the South, and will work to gather our resources to
realise this aim,” he said. “We are in a battle that does not
finish with the recovery of Heglig, but with an end to the
danger that comes from South Sudan.”
The assembly went on to adopt a resolution describing the
SPLM government as “an enemy”, but it did not spell out the full
implications of the decision.
South Sudanese Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin
called the decision “ludicrous”. “How can they call us an
enemy?” he said.
South Sudan insists Heglig is rightfully part of the South
and says it will not withdraw its troops unless the United
Nations deploys a neutral force to monitor a ceasefire.
It accused Khartoum on Sunday of reducing the oil facility
“to rubble” in an air strike, an accusation denied by Sudan.
“If any damage has occurred in Heglig it may have been on
the part of the army of South Sudan,” Sudanese Information
Minister Abdallah Ali Masar said.
Both sides regularly make conflicting claims. Limited access
to the remote region makes it difficult to independently verify
their statements.
FIGHTING ECLIPSES NEGOTIATIONS
The clashes have all but killed hopes the two can reach an
agreement soon on disputed issues such as demarcation of their
1,800-km (1,200-mile) border, division of national debt and the
status of citizens in each other’s territory.
South Sudan’s military spokesman, Philip Aguer, said the its
armed forces had brought 14 prisoners of war to Juba on Sunday,
the first to arrive in the South’s capital since the fighting in
Heglig began.
He said Sudan’s army had also shelled a location in the west
of South Sudan’s Upper Nile state on Sunday. “The army is trying
to open other fronts,” he said.
Barnaba said at least four people were killed and 21 wounded
by air strikes on Sunday on Bentiu and Mayom in South Sudan’s
Unity state, figures that could not be independently confirmed.
During an aerial bombardment of the area, a U.N. camp in
Mayom was hit and its radio room was damaged, but no one was
wounded, said Kouider Zerrouk, a United Nations spokesman.
Sudan’s armed forces spokesman said Sudan had “no relation”
to what was happening in Unity state.
“The Sudanese armed forces are defending their territory
after coming under attack from the forces of South Sudan’s
government and does not bear any responsibility for what happens
outside Sudan’s borders,” spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khalid said,
according to state news agency SUNA.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice described
the bombing which hit the U.N. camp as “particularly condemnable
and deplorable”.
“This is obviously a subject of grave concern as is the
South’s continued presence in Heglig and a myriad of violent
confrontations in and around the border area and deep into both
countries territory,” she told reporters on Monday.
In Juba, South Sudan’s parliament decided to raise military
spending and bolster the army by cutting salaries of all
deputies by 10 percent for three months.
“It is better to give the money to the army to defend our
country,” senior parliamentarian Joy Kwaje told reporters after
deputies approved a resolution to support the armed forces and a
general mobilisation of the military.
(Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Additional reporting by
Michelle Nichols and Alexander Dziadosz Editing by Maria
Golovnina)
