Unity State authorities refuse military re-deployment in oil regions

The JIUs are were devised during the 2005 Comprehensive Peace agreement (CPA) to unify forces of the northern Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

At a joint Council of Ministers meeting with the state legislative assembly Friday, the Unity State government led by Taban Deng Gai discussed the deployment of JIUs from the Khartoum-backed Sudan Army Forces (SAF) to oil-producing areas in Southern Sudan.

It also condemned an inflammatory speech by President Omar al Bashir in which he declared oil-rich Abyei as part of the north.

Unity State spokesman Gideon Gatpan Thoar.According to spokesman Gideon Gatpan Thoar, a joint plan by the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) and Khartoum’s National Unity Government to re-deploy 300 JIU or SAF troops to five oil fields in Unity State had been approved by state authorities. He said these troops were to be deployed to guard the oil fields until Southern Sudan’s independence on 9 July 2011, as stipulated by the CPA.

But after serious debate, the Unity State Council of Ministers and state assembly introduced strong resolutions rejecting Khartoum’s redeployment.

Convinced that rebel militias would use SAF bases to destabilise Southern Sudan, the resolution appealed to the Khartoum regime to refrain from provoking hostilities in the oil fields in the run-up to independence. It also demanded that the Khartoum government honour the international court of arbitration’s ruling on Abyei.

Citing the expulsion of southern MPs from the national parliament in Khartoum, and numerous militias in the greater Upper Nile region that are believed to be backed by the north, Thoar stressed that the process of Southern Sudan’s secession is guided by the CPA, and that the SAF should no longer be allowed to operate in the south.