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Thursday, February 17, 2011     INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING

South Sudan accuses Khartoum of sponsoring renegade faction in its army; 210 dead

CAIRO — Southern Sudan, preparing for independence from the Arab north, has been battling a mutiny within its nascent military.

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More than 210 people have been killed in what was termed a mutiny within the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, deemed as the basis for the south's military. The casualties were the result of attacks by a renegade faction of SPLA believed financed by the Khartoum regime.

"Today armed groups are being financed, being armed, being sent into southern Sudan from the north," SPLA secretary-general Pagan Amum said.

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In a briefing on Feb. 15, Amum said the renegade faction of SPLA was headed by former senior officer George Athor, who has been accused of massacres in the south. Amum said Athor's militia was attacking civilians throughout the oil-rich state of Jonglei in wake of his election loss in 2010.

"His guns are coming from Khartoum," Amum said.

The fighting in the south came in wake of a pledge by Sudanese President Omar Bashir to honor the results of the referendum on southern secession. More than 95 percent of voters approved a resolution for southern independence. Formal independence was scheduled to take place in July.

Athor has been identified as a senior SPLA commander who fought the Khartoum regime in the 1990s. In 2010, he lost in a bid to become governor of Jonglei and later accused the Southern People's Liberation Movement of fraud.

Officials said many of the victims in Jonglei were Sudanese who had returned to the south to vote in the referendum in January. They said the Bashir regime was seeking to destabilize the south through militia violence.

"We are a society that is traumatized," Pamum said. "Guns are in a lot of hands."



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