Bashir gives South Sudan his blessing and pledges support

Khartoum, Thursday:

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir pledged his support to South Sudan, two days before gaining its independence from the North on Saturday.

“We will bless our brothers in the south over their country and we wish them success,” he told thousands of supporters in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The president said he wanted the new country to be “secure and stable”.

But he warned “brotherly relations” depended on secure borders and non-interference in each others’ affairs.
Publisert 09.07.11
Congratulate our brothers

There had been fears that war could resume after recent fighting in two border areas, Abyei and South Kordofan, which has forced some 170,000 people from their homes.

But separate deals in recent weeks, and the withdrawal of rival forces from the border, have calmed tensions.

“We reiterate our readiness to stand with them and support them because they want their country,” said Mr al-Bashir, who is due in the southern capital, Juba, for the independence celebrations.

“We will not interfere in your internal affairs. Likewise, we will not allow you to interfere in our internal affairs,” he warned.

“We are capable of responding but we do not want to.”

Speaking just two days before the planned ceremony, Mr al-Bashir said: “After two days, I will go to Juba to congratulate our brothers on their new state, and we will renew our commitment to help them because we want a southern state that is stable and secure.”
“Because if it is not secure, the people of the south will come back to the north.”

Around 360,000 southerners have already left the north and gone south since October, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), many of them motivated by the simple desire to participate in the historic birth of their nation.

“We want relations based on an exchange of benefits and trade, and the free movement of citizens across the borders,” Bashir added.

South Sudan is carrying out final preparations ahead of its formal declaration of independence on Saturday but it is also struggling to cope with the mass influx of people, and to contain violence within its borders.

Tensions have escalated

The number of people killed in violence so far this year has now exceeded 2,360, the United Nations said on Thursday, revising upward the estimated death toll by more than 500, and reflecting the huge challenges the country faces.

Tensions between north and south Sudan, meanwhile, have escalated since May because of conflict in the volatile central border region.
Fighting in the ethnically-divided northern state of South Kordofan has raged for a month between the army and militia aligned to the ex-rebel army of the south, the SPLA.

Mr al-Bashir said Khartoum would not accept any partnership with the so-called rebels before security arrangements in South Kordofan were in place.