Amid
Talk
of Regime
Change, South
Sudan Holds
onto Oil Town
Heglig, Says
Offered to
Help Sudan
With IMF
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 17 --
Amid reports
of the South
Sudanese
forces in
Heglig being
joined by a
range of
Sudanese
rebels seeking
to
overthrow the
Omar al Bashir
government,
Inner City
Press on
Tuesday
asked US
Ambassador
Susan Rice if
this had been
mentioned in
the
day's Security
Council
briefing by
Thabo Mbeki,
and what the
US
thought of the
presence in
Heglig of the
Darfur-based
rebels of the
Justice &
Equality
Movement, now
with weapons
of the Gaddafi
government of
Libya.
Ambassador
Rice
replied that
"there was
discussion in
the context of
Mbeki's
briefing,
about the
perception in
Khartoum that
the South's
objectives are
regime change,
and he
reported
indeed that
the North
has said that
if that is so,
their
objective is
now also
regime
change."
As
Inner City
Press
exclusively
reported after
Mbeki's and
his fellow
panelists'
last closed
door briefing
of the
Security
Council,
members of the
Council heard
that South
Sudan thinks
that without
oil revenue,
the
Bashir
government
could remain
in power for
only eight or
so months.
That
was after
South Sudan
stopped
pumping oil,
denying Sudan
an oil
transfer fee.
Now with the
takeover of
Sudan's
largest
remaining oil
field, Heglig,
the timetable
may be getting
shorter.
Ambassador
Rice
continued,
"One would
hope this is
rhetoric, and
not the object
of either
side... Both
sides have
provided
support to
proxies in
each
other's
territory, it
has continued
in both
directions and
needs to
end, as we
[the US] have
said on a
national
basis, and as
the
Security
Council has
said on an
international
basis."
South
Sudan's
charge
d'affaires
Agnes Oswaha,
for her part,
told the Press
that "we
leave regime
change to the
citizen of the
continuing
state of the
Sudan, if they
want to change
the regime."
Inner
City Press
asked
Ambassador
Oswaha to
confirm that
that her
government has
shot
down a
Sudanese MiG
29 jet,
something that
the UN which
has an
expensive
peacekeeping
mission in
South Sudan
was unable or
willing
to do at
Tuesday's noon
briefing when
Inner City
Press asked.
Yes,
Oswaha
replied, there
were MiG 29
jets
"hovering, we
shot one of
them
down, that's
the reality...
There are
Antonovs, the
situation not
safe, we try
protect our
citizens."
Oswaha
denied
that the goal
of taking
Heglig was to
"punish Sudan,
which lost
already
one-forth of
the oil...
That wasn't
our intention.
We offered
them $2.6
billion as a
transition
grant, offered
to help with
theirdebt,
pursuing their
debtors, the
World Bank or
the IMF to
help
with that
process." To
which we will
be turning
next: watch
this
site.
, 
