Annan welcomes Khartoum’s pledge to halt air strikes

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed the announcement by the government of Sudan that it would halt all air attacks in the country’s south and in the Nubah Mountains with effect from 25 May. Annan said he hoped this positive step would “help reduce the sufferings of the people in these areas and will also enhance the prospects for peace”. Khartoum announced the decision to halt air attacks on the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Thursday, 24 May, and said it was taken in conformity with the government’s “solid belief in realising peace and stability in the country”. The government said this move reconfirmed its seriousness in making repeated calls for a comprehensive ceasefire, but insisted it would repulse any aggression by any quarter that sought to exploit it.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking in Uganda on 27 May, welcomed the government’s stated intention to suspend bombing in the south, but said it would have to last some time before the US could assess its importance. “I think this is a good step but it can’t just be for a short time... We will measure their behaviour, their response to our actions and whether or not we have a basis for moving forward,” Reuters quoted him as saying. Powell said it would be premature for the US to reopen its embassy in Khartoum at this point, but that it was going to move ahead with its new strategy on Sudan carefully and prudently. The SPLM/A said on 24 May that it did not believe the government on this issue, and rejected its annoucement as “a public relations exercise”.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese Catholic Information Office reported on 25 May that the government had “pelted Tonj, in Bahr al-Ghazal region, with 14 bombs”, even as it announced the cessation of air raids on rebel positions in south Sudan and the Nubah Mountains on Thursday. A Catholic priest in Tonj, Fr James Pulickal, said the bomber aircraft struck in the morning - with the bombs falling near the mission’s dispensary, on the road to Wau - and again in the afternoon near Tonj River, the report stated. Such bombing incidents had greatly disrupted life in Tonj, with people having to stay in the bush from around 1000 until sunset each day, it added.