The president of the autonomous region of south Sudan was sworn in on Friday, after being declared winner last month in the country's first competitive elections in more than two decades, as Darfur rebels said they have killed 200 in clashes with army.
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Salva Kiir, the head of the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, was sworn in as the first elected president of south Sudan, in a ceremony in the southern capital Juba carried by state television. Kiir was declared winner with 92.99 percent of the votes, in an election that was marred by accusations of fraud and logistical problems. The SPLM clinched nine of the 10 posts of governor in the south. It also took control of the vast majority of seats in the southern assembly. Some 10 million Sudanese, including 2.8 million southerners, voted between April 11 and 15 in the country’s first multi-party election in 24 years. It was also the first competitive election for the south Sudanese presidency and assembly, institutions born out of a 2005 peace deal between north and south to end a brutal decades-long war. The SPLM ended 22 years of civil war with a 2005 peace deal giving the south its own government, wealth sharing, furthering of democracy, and allowing southerners a referendum on secession, due to be held on Jan. 9, 2011. Kiir will also become the national First Vice President, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s deputy, and the two will form a new government expected to be announced in early June. Key tasks ahead for the former enemies are demarcating the disputed north-south border, along which much of Sudan’s oil wealth lies, and defining citizenship ahead of the referendum which most analysts believe will end in secession. |
Fighting
In the meantime, Darfur’s most militarized rebel group said on Friday it had killed 200 Sudanese government troops in the western region, but the army denied the toll in the latest fighting to cloud troubled peace talks.
"The Sudanese army fled the villages of Daeen and Shaariya in the eastern part of south Darfur after we killed 200 of their troops" between Wednesday and Thursday, Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) commander Suleiman Sandal told AFP.
"We lost four of our members in the clashes," he said, speaking by satellite phone.
But the army denied the death toll, accusing the JEM of using civilians as "human shields."
"These numbers are inaccurate and baseless," army spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khaled told AFP, without providing any alternative figures.
"The rebels entered the village of Um Saouna in the eastern part of south Darfur, using civilians as human shields," Khaled said.
"Our forces are surrounding the village but we will not fight with the Justice and Equality Movement inside the village for fear of causing civilian casualties," he said.
The Khartoum government and the JEM have suspended peace talks since the rebel group accused the Sudanese army of attacking its positions last month.
It said that Khartoum was trying to impose a "military solution" in the seven-year-old conflict, which the United Nations estimates has killed 300,000 people.