Sudan has employed its new oil revenues to purchase
advanced weapons from China and Russia.
A Brussels-based think tank said in a report that the military
platforms purchased by Khartoum with oil revenues include MiG-29s from
Russia. Sudan is said to have a dozen MiG-29 fighter-jets in an estimated
$400 million deal.
Over the weekend, Sudan and the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Army
agreed on the framework of a peace plan that could result in a referendum on
the war-torn south in 2008. The agreement does not include that of an
immediate ceasefire.
In its report, the International Crisis Group predicted an escalation of
the civil war with Khartoum intending to exploit its increasing advantage in
air power. The group said the Khartoum and the SPLA are preparing to
increase fighting on several fronts in southern, central and eastern Sudan.
The organization said the MiG-29s are meant to facilitate nighttime
missions and end the 19-year rebel war by force. The report said the
revenues come from oil operations in the south.
"The government's superiority will be further enhanced, though to an
uncertain degree, when newly acquired MiG-29s and search and acquisition
radar become operational some time over the next twelve months," the report
said. "One military analyst predicted that with Russian or Ukrainian pilots
as part of the package, these MiGs will provide an integrated system that
will be able to interdict SPLA resupply by air as well as threaten the
relief agency flights that operate independently from the UN and without
government permission."
The report dismissed the latest peace moves in Kenya between Khartoum
and the SPLA. Instead, the group said the war in the south will escalate as
Sudan's military increases its combat abilities.
"Sudan's civil war, already one of the deadliest conflicts since World
War II, has entered its most destructive phase to date," the report said.
"Oil revenues have allowed the government to purchase increasingly lethal
weapons, more effectively pursue population clearing operations, and expand
the use of its greatest comparative advantage, air power."
The report was written by John Prendergast, who served on the U.S.
National
Security Council under the Clinton administration. Prendergast said the new
MiG-29s, purchased in a $120 million order from Russia, would seek to
prevent the SPLA supply to rebel-held areas.
The group said the SPLA and its allies have 10,000 troops on the
Eritrean border. The report said that despite a widescale military offensive
Khartoum has captured only two rebel-held towns.
The biggest military success has been in the southern Blue Nile, near
Ethiopia, where Sudanese government forces dislodged the SPLA from several
key garrisons including the strategic border town of Kissan. The report said
Khartoum's achievements have bolstered its ability to defend oil facilities
at Adar Yel.
"The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army has greater manpower to deploy
on multiple fronts, has also acquired more sophisticated arms, and is
engaging government forces in more intense conventional battles," the report
said. "The major dry season offensive the government launched deeper into
the oil fields and on two other fronts in January 2002 gained little
territory and began to peter out as the rains started in late May. Though
the SPLA withstood this assault, the test is now whether it can mount an
effective counter offensive. If it cannot, the prospect is that its capacity
to defend against the government's next dry season campaign, which will
undoubtedly be backed by more and better weapons, will begin to erode."
