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is is in trouble. Less then one year | :00:17. | :00:20. | |
after independence from Khartoum, the South and its much larger | :00:20. | :00:25. | |
northern neighbour are confronting each other over oil reserves, | :00:25. | :00:29. | |
borders and territory. Sporadic fighting has prompted mutual | :00:29. | :00:35. | |
recrimination and talk of all out war. My guest today is South | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
Sudan's Foreign Minister, Nhial Deng Nhial. The African Union and | :00:39. | :00:42. | |
the United Nations are pushing hard for a negotiated settlement, but is | :00:42. | :00:52. | |
:00:52. | :01:13. | ||
The Foreign Minister, Nhial Deng Nhial, welcome to HARDtalk. Glad to | :01:13. | :01:20. | |
be here. We saw all those fireworks last July, the big celebrations in | :01:20. | :01:24. | |
Juba as South Sudan declared its independent statehood. And now here | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
you are, locked in an ugly confrontation with Khartoum. Are | :01:28. | :01:33. | |
you surprised? No, not at all. The current situation was to be | :01:33. | :01:38. | |
expected, given the fact that there is a lot of unfinished business in | :01:38. | :01:45. | |
terms of the implementation of the peace agreement. Cartoon signed up | :01:45. | :01:51. | |
to certain commitments under the agreement, it ignored part of those | :01:51. | :01:55. | |
commitments, reneging on some of the most important ones, in | :01:55. | :02:03. | |
particular, the demarcation of the border. Now there is a fundamental | :02:03. | :02:07. | |
misconception about the borderline. Let's not get too technical too | :02:07. | :02:10. | |
early. It distracts me, that even as you refer to this unfinished | :02:10. | :02:15. | |
business, it was probably deeply premature - maybe even crazy - to | :02:15. | :02:20. | |
declare statehood, to oversee this independence, when, as you have | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
just said, you didn't have demarcated borders, you had major | :02:24. | :02:29. | |
territorial disputes, you hadn't settled to own to the boil and he | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
was going to receive the payments for the oil. All these key issues | :02:32. | :02:35. | |
were left unresolved. So why did she think that nation had could | :02:35. | :02:42. | |
work? From the word go, I think Khartoum was intent on frustrating | :02:42. | :02:45. | |
the will of the people of South Sudan. They never wanted | :02:45. | :02:48. | |
independence to take place, especially after it became quite | :02:48. | :02:51. | |
clear that the majority of people in South Sudan were going to vote | :02:51. | :02:55. | |
for statehood. The borders were supposed to be demarcated during | :02:56. | :02:59. | |
the interim period. That was six months before the onset of the | :02:59. | :03:03. | |
interim period proper, but cut to drag its feet and it never wanted | :03:03. | :03:09. | |
to do this, because Khartoum understood that on the basis of the | :03:09. | :03:13. | |
existing Borderline, if you applied that as the criteria for | :03:13. | :03:16. | |
determining where disputed or contested areas fell, it would lose | :03:16. | :03:21. | |
all of the current contested areas, without exception. Of course, it is | :03:21. | :03:27. | |
not so clear-cut when you look at it from Khartoum. Their history of | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
whether border lies is quite different. But let's talk about | :03:30. | :03:34. | |
recent weeks, because that is where the international focus is right | :03:34. | :03:38. | |
now. Would you accept, given what has recently happened, that your | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
military forces from South Sudan fairly catastrophically over a | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
plate - and when they pushed all the way into the town and the | :03:46. | :03:56. | |
:03:56. | :03:57. | ||
surrounding region of Heglig? -- overplayed backhand. To be clear to | :03:57. | :04:04. | |
people who are not familiar with the map, Heglig is close to the | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
disputed border, it is an oil town and an ordeal region, and it is, if | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
regarded, regarded, and certainly regarded in | :04:13. | :04:18. | |
Khartoum, as Northern territory. And your troops went across the | :04:18. | :04:23. | |
notional demarcation line and occupied the town. We did not | :04:23. | :04:27. | |
occupied the town. We went to the town by default, because when we | :04:27. | :04:31. | |
went to Heglig, that was the third time overall that Heglig was used | :04:31. | :04:34. | |
as a base to launch attacks against our own forces deep inside South | :04:34. | :04:44. | |
:04:44. | :04:45. | ||
Sudan. So when we repulsed the third and the final attack, we kept | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
on going, and found ourselves in Heglig as an occupied town. But | :04:49. | :04:54. | |
Heglig belongs to South Sudan. It was transferred to the North's only | :04:54. | :04:59. | |
in the late 1970s when oil was discovered dead. Again, as I said, | :04:59. | :05:02. | |
if you go by the criteria of the old border line, which has not yet | :05:02. | :05:10. | |
been agreed, but the parties, the South and the North, know that | :05:11. | :05:13. | |
Heglig would fall south of the line along with all the other disputed | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
areas. I expect we could get into a complicated debate about whether | :05:17. | :05:20. | |
border falls, and I don't want to spend too much time on that, but | :05:20. | :05:25. | |
all I'm saying is that the Court of international arbitration, in 2009, | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
drew a map which suggested quite clearly that Heglig would fall on | :05:28. | :05:33. | |
the northern side of the border. That is and his characterisation of | :05:33. | :05:36. | |
what happened with the building. The ruling was not on Heglig, it | :05:36. | :05:41. | |
was on Abyei. I know. Heglig was said not to be in Abyei, and | :05:42. | :05:44. | |
therefore it was widely seen across the international community that | :05:44. | :05:50. | |
Heglig was going to belong to the north, to Sudan. Not belonging to | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
Abyei does not automatically imply that it falls in the north, and | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
there was no explicit statement in the ruling that said it did. | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
could discuss this to kingdom come, but this is not the end. This | :06:00. | :06:03. | |
should be something you sorted out with the government and Khartoum, | :06:03. | :06:07. | |
nobody else can sort it out. But what is clear is that as a result | :06:07. | :06:11. | |
of your troops pushing into Heglig - you can characterise Italian like, | :06:11. | :06:16. | |
but that is what happened - he lost a lot of international support. Ban | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
Ki-Moon said the Act was an infringement on the sub-committee | :06:19. | :06:23. | |
of Sudan and it was a clear the illegal act. Those comments are | :06:23. | :06:28. | |
based on a misunderstanding of the status of Heglig. We did not want | :06:28. | :06:32. | |
to assert a claim by military means. We wanted to neutralise a town that | :06:32. | :06:36. | |
was being used as a base to attack us. You may have your reasons, but | :06:36. | :06:40. | |
I wanted to address this point, that South Sudan, in the nine or | :06:40. | :06:44. | |
ten months of its existence, seems to have lost a lot of international | :06:44. | :06:50. | |
sympathy because of some of the actions you have taken. And the | :06:50. | :06:52. | |
number one that action was the decision to put your trips all the | :06:52. | :06:58. | |
way into Heglig. Do you regret it? As I said, we did not go into | :06:58. | :07:05. | |
Heglig intentionally. Because you are saying it is not intentional, | :07:05. | :07:09. | |
are you tacitly nous intimidated was a mistake? I don't think it was | :07:09. | :07:12. | |
a mistake, because fundamentally we did not want to claim our | :07:12. | :07:16. | |
territories by military means. We are fairly confident, in the south, | :07:16. | :07:20. | |
that if we fall back on the old Borderline, the criteria for | :07:20. | :07:25. | |
determining the status of disputed areas, Heglig would accrue to the | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
Republic of South Sudan. So we had no intention or desire to use | :07:28. | :07:32. | |
military means to enforce a claims. Is that right? I just wonder, if | :07:32. | :07:37. | |
days, days, we have seen crowds in due | :07:37. | :07:42. | |
but burning Sudanese flags, and one of your colleagues in the Cabinet | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
table, and the environment minister, telling crowds that we will win | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
Heglig and Abyei? A clear implication that you will win it by | :07:50. | :08:00. | |
think that is what he meant. People were burning flags. He behaved in a | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
manner that was not befitting in a statement or a head of state, for | :08:03. | :08:08. | |
that matter. The President of Sudan. So people were frustrated. But it | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
is a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy that we will only | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
seek to recover territory is that we have lost through peaceful means. | :08:15. | :08:20. | |
Through peaceful means. So can you here and now one HARDtalk confirmed | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
to me that ordeal security forces, whether they are army or police, | :08:23. | :08:28. | |
will be pulled out of all of the disputed areas? Absolutely. | :08:28. | :08:31. | |
Instructions have already been given to a police force in appeared | :08:31. | :08:41. | |
:08:41. | :08:41. | ||
to pull out. When will they pull out? Very soon. How soon? Very soon. | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
But for the people on the ground, particularly the civilians in Abyei, | :08:45. | :08:48. | |
who feel that they are besieged on both sides, they want to know when | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
they can expect to see this demilitarisation completed. Well, | :08:53. | :09:01. | |
we have already expressed a desire for me demilitarisation. I just | :09:01. | :09:05. | |
wonder if you have learnt a lesson here. You say that it was no big | :09:05. | :09:08. | |
your intention to win by military means, but perhaps you have learned | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
over the last few weeks that if it comes to a shooting match, you are | :09:12. | :09:16. | |
not going to win. President Omar al-Bashir the other day said that | :09:16. | :09:19. | |
the only language they understand in the south is the language of the | :09:19. | :09:22. | |
gun, which prompted a lot of people to look at the military balance. | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
And although you have a lot of people in a military forces, you do | :09:26. | :09:31. | |
not have the aircraft, the tanks, artillery to really compete with | :09:31. | :09:37. | |
the North. And perhaps you have come to realise that. I do not want | :09:37. | :09:40. | |
to go down the path of the Omar al- Bashir, but the fact is we arrive | :09:40. | :09:45. | |
very resilient people. We have no desire or intention to pursue a | :09:45. | :09:49. | |
military conflict with Omar al- Bashir. But if a military conflict | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
is going to be imposed on us by the North, then I think our resilience | :09:52. | :09:57. | |
will enable us to win. Do you think all out war is still a possibility? | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
It is a possibility, but I think it is receding, in view of the | :10:01. | :10:04. | |
decisions that have been taken by the African Union peace and | :10:04. | :10:08. | |
security council, and which we understand will form the basis of | :10:08. | :10:15. | |
the UN Security Council resolution. So you are saying that the focus | :10:15. | :10:19. | |
right now is on diplomacy, not on fighting? Let's pursue that a | :10:19. | :10:24. | |
little bit. The special envoy to this conflict from the African | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
Union said that in essence, there has to be, within the next few days, | :10:28. | :10:31. | |
the beginning of a m dialogue between you and the North, | :10:31. | :10:35. | |
and ultimately there has to be a settlement of the key issue, which | :10:35. | :10:40. | |
is border demarcation, territorial dispute, and the oil issue, over | :10:40. | :10:43. | |
the next three months, and if there is not an agreement over the next | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
three months, then the African Union will impose a binding | :10:46. | :10:51. | |
settlement. Are you prepared to accept that? Absolutely, and I | :10:51. | :10:54. | |
think credit has to go to the African Union for that. The African | :10:54. | :10:59. | |
Union is starting to live up to its responsibilities. So you will be | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
done to buy it? Even if they disagree with what you just told me | :11:02. | :11:08. | |
about the status of Heglig or Abyei, you'll absolutely committed the | :11:08. | :11:12. | |
African Union resolution? Yes, and we are very confident that a case | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
is strong. Well, they're very confident in Khartoum as well. The | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
that they too are being explicit that even if you lose the case, you | :11:21. | :11:26. | |
will abide by it all decisions? Well, cartoon is still dragging its | :11:26. | :11:33. | |
own feet about whether to agree but the African Union resolution or not. | :11:33. | :11:39. | |
Some of your diplomats have said things very differently. One of | :11:39. | :11:44. | |
your senior diplomats in Nairobi said to be news wires the other day | :11:44. | :11:46. | |
that the envoy from the African Union was Patterson, and not | :11:46. | :11:55. | |
credible? -- Patterson. Well, the process leaves something to be | :11:55. | :11:59. | |
desired. But you said you were entirely happy by it and will sign | :11:59. | :12:03. | |
up towards conclusions. It is not the work of the envoy, it is the | :12:03. | :12:07. | |
work of the African Union. But he personifies the African Union | :12:07. | :12:13. | |
diplomatic mission right now. well, we would like to see him work | :12:13. | :12:15. | |
collaboratively with the other African Union organs, because the | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
process that he is leading need support, and the process that has | :12:19. | :12:29. | |
:12:29. | :12:30. | ||
been decided by the African Union... the United Nations Security Council | :12:30. | :12:32. | |
is very concerned about the fighting we have seen in the last | :12:32. | :12:36. | |
few weeks. And they have said to both Juba and Khartoum, that if you | :12:36. | :12:40. | |
do not stop the fighting now, we may well consider sanctions under | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
Article 41. That is not such a big deal for Khartoum, because they | :12:43. | :12:48. | |
have lived with sections for a long time, but it comes back to my point | :12:48. | :12:52. | |
about you losing international sympathy. If there was any talk of | :12:52. | :12:55. | |
sanctions being imposed on South Sudan, that would be a terrible | :12:55. | :12:58. | |
indictment of your strategy, wouldn't it? I can assure you we | :12:58. | :13:01. | |
would not be the reason for triggering tensions under Article | :13:01. | :13:08. | |
41. -- sanctions. But they are actually considering it as the | :13:08. | :13:11. | |
ultimate punishment if you do not sit around the table. So I am | :13:11. | :13:14. | |
asking you, if you consider that looking back over the past few | :13:14. | :13:19. | |
weeks, did just strategy backfired? We have always been around the | :13:19. | :13:23. | |
table. If you read press statements, there is a very clear indication | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
that we want to talk to Khartoum. President Omar al-Bashir has about | :13:27. | :13:31. | |
that he will not sit around the table until he has taught us a | :13:31. | :13:33. | |
lesson, and we have consistently maintained that there is no | :13:33. | :13:38. | |
solution except through dialogue. OK, so we have talked about the | :13:38. | :13:42. | |
territorial dispute and the border, and obviously your positions and | :13:42. | :13:45. | |
cartoons positions are still quite far apart, but you have said that | :13:45. | :13:49. | |
he will accept the African new diplomatic initiative. Let's talk | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
about what underpins all of this, which is oil, and money. The fact | :13:53. | :13:57. | |
is, is it not, that what we have seen in the past few weeks is that | :13:57. | :14:01. | |
the weakness of your new nation has been terrib been terribd. Because you | :14:01. | :14:05. | |
cut off oil production, partly to punish Sudan, because they would | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
not then get the revenues from the Transits. But in so doing, you have | :14:09. | :14:18. | |
decimated urine economy. -- Europe own economy. The point was not to | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
punish Sudan. Once cartoon started confiscating and diverting our oil, | :14:23. | :14:27. | |
in December and January, we hoped that this process would stop. | :14:27. | :14:30. | |
Because all the while we were negotiating what would be a fair | :14:30. | :14:40. | |
:14:40. | :14:43. | ||
transit fee to pay to Khartoum. In doing the deal to accept | :14:43. | :14:48. | |
nationhood, cartoon has seen its revenue fall by up billions of | :14:48. | :14:53. | |
dollars. They have a black hole to fill in their budget. One way to do | :14:53. | :14:57. | |
that is to put up the price of transmitting your oil to the Red | :14:58. | :15:02. | |
Sea port. What would be a fair price for the pipeline transit of | :15:02. | :15:09. | |
your oil to the Red Sea? That is subject to negotiations. Let's talk | :15:09. | :15:18. | |
able part bigger. Khartoum has demanded 36 but that is outrageous. | :15:18. | :15:23. | |
What are you prepared to pay? are already paying the | :15:23. | :15:27. | |
transportation costs and we will pay something that is reasonable | :15:27. | :15:34. | |
MIT of international standard practice. You say $36 per barrel is | :15:34. | :15:43. | |
unreasonable, what is reasonable? Others pay 41 per barrel. So less | :15:43. | :15:53. | |
:15:53. | :15:57. | ||
than a dollar? He was saying something like 60. It seems that | :15:57. | :16:01. | |
what you're saying is not realistic. We're looking for a fair commercial | :16:01. | :16:10. | |
deal. The point of departure for Khartoum is that they have to get | :16:10. | :16:15. | |
the welfare and the way at our expense. But the oil pipeline that | :16:15. | :16:21. | |
you need to use goes through their territory. But the people of South | :16:21. | :16:24. | |
Sudan find it very difficult to accept that they will be | :16:24. | :16:29. | |
blackmailed into paying these outrageous sums. This goes to the | :16:29. | :16:33. | |
viability of state in your current strategy. I have seen some of their | :16:33. | :16:37. | |
ministers talking airily about building a new pipeline, perhaps | :16:37. | :16:44. | |
through Kenya.Best in the massive infrastructure project that | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
represents when you win a possibly going to be at war with Sudan? They | :16:48. | :16:53. | |
have an air force and you don't, they can bomb ate any pipeline | :16:53. | :16:58. | |
project they choose to target. He will invest and that? I think we're | :16:59. | :17:02. | |
likely to be able to attract investors because of the oil | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
resources we still have. Even in the current instability? I do not | :17:07. | :17:12. | |
think it will last. If President Bashir is on the warpath, it will | :17:12. | :17:21. | |
be disastrous. He is trying to wage and political difficulties. | :17:21. | :17:24. | |
have political difficulties of Tyrone. We Tyrone. We Tyrone. We | :17:24. | :17:28. | |
the queues for fuel because of the lack of production in your own | :17:28. | :17:38. | |
country. We have seen the value of your privacy plummet against the US | :17:38. | :17:47. | |
dollar since his halting of well We are fully aware of the | :17:47. | :17:57. | |
:17:57. | :17:57. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 51 seconds | :17:57. | :18:49. | |
The flow of oil will not be disrupted or confiscated. We will | :18:49. | :18:57. | |
be more than happy to sign an agreement. When you said two years, | :18:57. | :19:01. | |
did you mean two years of difficulties or two years where we | :19:01. | :19:11. | |
:19:11. | :19:11. | ||
anticipate we will not be exporting oil this pipeline? Which is it? I | :19:11. | :19:14. | |
looked at John Ministry of Finance figures and oil is 98% of your | :19:14. | :19:19. | |
state revenues. You can't live without 98% of your revenues. | :19:19. | :19:23. | |
have already put in place the austerity measures. It will be more | :19:24. | :19:29. | |
than austerity if you have lost 90% of your income. We can survive. | :19:29. | :19:34. | |
South Sudan has been at war for close that -- close to three | :19:34. | :19:37. | |
decades. We have had nothing for all this time. We can adapt. It | :19:37. | :19:44. | |
will be tough, but I think we will survive. Should I take it that this | :19:44. | :19:51. | |
pipeline project, which you said is realistic will start very quickly | :19:51. | :19:56. | |
hitting towards Kenya? We would like it to start as soon as | :19:56. | :20:05. | |
possible. Negotiations are under way. Who will invest? In I would | :20:05. | :20:09. | |
not like to say that right now. There are countries that have | :20:09. | :20:17. | |
expressed interest. focus has been about the dispute | :20:17. | :20:22. | |
with Khartoum. People may be surprised to learn that actually, | :20:22. | :20:28. | |
some of the nastiest violence we have seen in your country does not | :20:28. | :20:37. | |
the North, but is an internal problem. According to the UN, there | :20:37. | :20:45. | |
are perhaps 200,000 civilians displaced and maybe 3,000 people | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
killed in ethnic and tribal conflict. If any government's first | :20:50. | :20:54. | |
priority has to be to deliver security to its own people, you're | :20:54. | :21:03. | |
feeling. We have started a campaign of disarmament and it is going well. | :21:03. | :21:09. | |
The problem of proliferation of arms in the hands of the civilian | :21:09. | :21:14. | |
population is that it is manu | :21:14. | :21:20. | |
manufacturing -- manufacture arms. But we're starting the disarmament | :21:20. | :21:24. | |
campaign and it will be extended to other areas. At the end of last | :21:24. | :21:27. | |
year, the minority rights international conference suggested | :21:27. | :21:34. | |
that if things did not change quickly, there was a potential | :21:34. | :21:40. | |
genocide looming. Do you fear that could be true? Not at all. That is | :21:40. | :21:46. | |
a huge exaggeration. And efforts are being directly supported by the | :21:46. | :21:54. | |
when. They can attest to the fact that the programme is successful. | :21:54. | :21:59. | |
We are talking about security or we could talk about corruption, which | :21:59. | :22:07. | |
has been an issue for Euro administration. Their allegations | :22:07. | :22:11. | |
that money has disappeared with the new adminis new adminisIt does to the | :22:11. | :22:17. | |
question of what there you and your fellow ministers are really showing | :22:17. | :22:21. | |
the competence that is necessary to lead your nation in very difficult | :22:21. | :22:29. | |
circumstances. I can confidently say that regarding the war against | :22:29. | :22:33. | |
corruption, significant strikes have been made of. A deadline was | :22:33. | :22:37. | |
set for all senior government officials to make a declaration of | :22:37. | :22:47. | |
:22:47. | :22:47. | ||
you do that? Absolutely. What are you worth? I don't know. It is | :22:47. | :22:52. | |
supposed to be confidential. just told me you happily made the | :22:52. | :23:00. | |
declaration. You must know what to declare. I did and they do but it | :23:00. | :23:05. | |
is supposed to be confidential. is not transparent if it is | :23:05. | :23:13. | |
confidential. The law says you make a confidential declaration of your | :23:13. | :23:16. | |
assets and liabilities and if something transpires, have that | :23:16. | :23:21. | |
information can be used. That is a decision that can't be taken by the | :23:21. | :23:31. | |
:23:31. | :23:32. | ||
public at large, it is all secret. They can't draw conclusions. There | :23:32. | :23:41. | |
is an anti-corruption commission which this conflict with Sudan -- | :23:41. | :23:48. | |
north Sudan is a useful distraction for your government given the other | :23:48. | :23:56. | |
problems South Sudan faces? Khartoum it is a useful distraction. | :23:56. | :24:01. | |
We do not want to occupy the areas we think belong to us by force. | :24:01. | :24:09. |