Bishops warn against culture of violence

In a pastoral letter issued early this month, the Sudan Catholic Bishops Conference (SCBC) raised the red flag on  hate speech, incitement, and culture of violence in South Sudan.

The bishops were alluding specifically to the insecurity in greater Upper Nile as a result of active local militia who have wreaked havoc and anarchy in the area.

Authorities in the Government of Southern Sudan have blamed some sections of the local media for incitement. On April 2 security personnel at Juba International Airport seized copies of South Sudan’s bi-weekly newspaper, The Juba Post, and the editors warned not to publish stories about the insurgents.

According to the editor of the Juba Post, Mr Michael Koma, the paper was seized because of a front page story in which forces of SPLA renegade officer General George Athor threatened to attack Juba the South Sudan capital before independence date.

After a successful referendum on self-determination in January 2011, South Sudan will secede from the Sudan after attaining full independence on July 9.

General Athor has been a threat to peace in South Sudan since he started his insurrection after Sudan’s general elections in April 2010. He had contested the gubernatorial elections in Jonglei State and was defeated by the incumbent governor Kuol Manyang.

However general Athor claims the elections were rigged and votes stolen, the reason why he went to the bush to fight for democracy.

In October 2010, the president of the Government of southern Sudan Salva Kiir pardoned all armed groups, but only a few of them responded by returning home to rejoin the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.  General Athor is still at large.

The Government of southern Sudan has accused the National Congress Party in Khartoum of supplying arms to armed groups in Southern Sudan to cause instability.

In mid March Mr. Pagan Amum the Secretary General of the ruling party in the South, the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement, told a press conference in Juba that Sudan’s president, Omar Al-Bashir, was plotting to overthrow Salva Kiir’s government in south Sudan.

Amum said El-Bashir’s government in Khartoum was clandestinely arming southern militia to destabilize the government in Juba, claims which Khartoum has since denied. Even when Al-Bashir visited Juba last week, he never made any reference to the SPLM claims.

Late last month a group of rag-tag armed groups formerly bankrolled by Al-Bashir’s government in the days before the peace agreement, formed an alliance under the command of General George Athor.

In an attempt not to jeopardise the forthcoming day for the formal declaration of independence on 9 July, SPLA forces are only acting in self-defence. Recent attacks by the rebels have claimed more than 200 people, mainly civilians.