Sudan President Omar al-Bashir threatened Wednesday to free southerners of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in Juba, escalating war rhetoric against South Sudan.
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir threatened Wednesday to free southerners of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in Juba, escalating war rhetoric against South Sudan.
Sudan and South Sudan have been fighting around disputed border area of Heglig since it was occupied by the southern army last week amid growing fears that the recently-separated countries are heading for all-out war.
Addressing a mobilization rally organized by the youth sector of his ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum, Al-Bashir promised that the coming hours will bring “good news” from Sudanese forces fighting, as he said, on the outskirts of Heglig, Sudan Tribune reported.
"Our main target from today is to liberate South Sudan's citizens from the SPLM (Sudan People's Liberation Movement)," Bashir said, adding that the southern regime cannot be called a "movement".
He accused South Sudan’s ruling party, the SPLM, of seeking to execute what he termed as the agendas of world powers to oust the government in Khartoum before threatening to do it the other way around.
“Either we end up occupying Juba or you end up occupying Khartoum but the boundaries of the old Sudan can no longer fit us together, only one of us has to remain standing” Bashir said.
The Sudanese president said that liberating Heglig would be the first step towards achieving the main goal which, according to him, is to “completely annihilate” the SPLM, describing it as an insect that must be crushed.
“We have promised the south’s people to free them from the SPLM rule immediately and we bear a responsibility before the south’s citizens after we contributed to establishing the SPLM rule in the South” he said.
Al-Bashir vowed before the audience that Sudanese forces will teach South Sudan a lesson in ’Jihad’ and patriotism.
The United Nations, the United States and the European Union have criticized the South's occupation of the oil field, equally denouncing Sudan's air strikes against the South.
In the face of Bashir's words, South Sudan called for negotiations.
"We can only resolve this through talks with the African Union," South Sudan's Minister of Information, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, told AFP.
While Bashir forecast an imminent victory, a foreign ministry official said Sudan is pursuing both military and diplomatic measures to get South Sudan out of the area.
"We have to end the occupation by hook or crook, by either way," Omar Dahab, head of the ministry's crisis team, told a news conference.
On Tuesday, the UN Security Council discussed possible sanctions against Sudan and South Sudan in a bid to halt a wider war.
Dahab said penalizing both would be wrong.
"Logically it should be directed to the aggressor," he said.
