:00:17. > :00:20.is is in trouble. Less then one year
:00:20. > :00:25.after independence from Khartoum, the South and its much larger
:00:25. > :00:29.northern neighbour are confronting each other over oil reserves,
:00:29. > :00:35.borders and territory. Sporadic fighting has prompted mutual
:00:35. > :00:39.recrimination and talk of all out war. My guest today is South
:00:39. > :00:42.Sudan's Foreign Minister, Nhial Deng Nhial. The African Union and
:00:42. > :00:52.the United Nations are pushing hard for a negotiated settlement, but is
:00:52. > :01:13.
:01:13. > :01:20.The Foreign Minister, Nhial Deng Nhial, welcome to HARDtalk. Glad to
:01:20. > :01:24.be here. We saw all those fireworks last July, the big celebrations in
:01:24. > :01:28.Juba as South Sudan declared its independent statehood. And now here
:01:28. > :01:33.you are, locked in an ugly confrontation with Khartoum. Are
:01:33. > :01:38.you surprised? No, not at all. The current situation was to be
:01:38. > :01:45.expected, given the fact that there is a lot of unfinished business in
:01:45. > :01:51.terms of the implementation of the peace agreement. Cartoon signed up
:01:51. > :01:55.to certain commitments under the agreement, it ignored part of those
:01:55. > :02:03.commitments, reneging on some of the most important ones, in
:02:03. > :02:07.particular, the demarcation of the border. Now there is a fundamental
:02:07. > :02:10.misconception about the borderline. Let's not get too technical too
:02:10. > :02:15.early. It distracts me, that even as you refer to this unfinished
:02:15. > :02:20.business, it was probably deeply premature - maybe even crazy - to
:02:20. > :02:24.declare statehood, to oversee this independence, when, as you have
:02:24. > :02:29.just said, you didn't have demarcated borders, you had major
:02:29. > :02:32.territorial disputes, you hadn't settled to own to the boil and he
:02:32. > :02:35.was going to receive the payments for the oil. All these key issues
:02:35. > :02:42.were left unresolved. So why did she think that nation had could
:02:42. > :02:45.work? From the word go, I think Khartoum was intent on frustrating
:02:45. > :02:48.the will of the people of South Sudan. They never wanted
:02:48. > :02:51.independence to take place, especially after it became quite
:02:51. > :02:55.clear that the majority of people in South Sudan were going to vote
:02:56. > :02:59.for statehood. The borders were supposed to be demarcated during
:02:59. > :03:03.the interim period. That was six months before the onset of the
:03:03. > :03:09.interim period proper, but cut to drag its feet and it never wanted
:03:09. > :03:13.to do this, because Khartoum understood that on the basis of the
:03:13. > :03:16.existing Borderline, if you applied that as the criteria for
:03:16. > :03:21.determining where disputed or contested areas fell, it would lose
:03:21. > :03:27.all of the current contested areas, without exception. Of course, it is
:03:27. > :03:30.not so clear-cut when you look at it from Khartoum. Their history of
:03:30. > :03:34.whether border lies is quite different. But let's talk about
:03:34. > :03:38.recent weeks, because that is where the international focus is right
:03:38. > :03:42.now. Would you accept, given what has recently happened, that your
:03:42. > :03:46.military forces from South Sudan fairly catastrophically over a
:03:46. > :03:56.plate - and when they pushed all the way into the town and the
:03:56. > :03:57.
:03:57. > :04:04.surrounding region of Heglig? -- overplayed backhand. To be clear to
:04:04. > :04:09.people who are not familiar with the map, Heglig is close to the
:04:09. > :04:12.disputed border, it is an oil town and an ordeal region, and it is, if
:04:13. > :04:18.regarded, regarded, and certainly regarded in
:04:18. > :04:23.Khartoum, as Northern territory. And your troops went across the
:04:23. > :04:27.notional demarcation line and occupied the town. We did not
:04:27. > :04:31.occupied the town. We went to the town by default, because when we
:04:31. > :04:34.went to Heglig, that was the third time overall that Heglig was used
:04:34. > :04:44.as a base to launch attacks against our own forces deep inside South
:04:44. > :04:45.
:04:45. > :04:49.Sudan. So when we repulsed the third and the final attack, we kept
:04:49. > :04:54.on going, and found ourselves in Heglig as an occupied town. But
:04:54. > :04:59.Heglig belongs to South Sudan. It was transferred to the North's only
:04:59. > :05:02.in the late 1970s when oil was discovered dead. Again, as I said,
:05:02. > :05:10.if you go by the criteria of the old border line, which has not yet
:05:11. > :05:13.been agreed, but the parties, the South and the North, know that
:05:13. > :05:17.Heglig would fall south of the line along with all the other disputed
:05:17. > :05:20.areas. I expect we could get into a complicated debate about whether
:05:20. > :05:25.border falls, and I don't want to spend too much time on that, but
:05:25. > :05:28.all I'm saying is that the Court of international arbitration, in 2009,
:05:28. > :05:33.drew a map which suggested quite clearly that Heglig would fall on
:05:33. > :05:36.the northern side of the border. That is and his characterisation of
:05:36. > :05:41.what happened with the building. The ruling was not on Heglig, it
:05:42. > :05:44.was on Abyei. I know. Heglig was said not to be in Abyei, and
:05:44. > :05:50.therefore it was widely seen across the international community that
:05:50. > :05:53.Heglig was going to belong to the north, to Sudan. Not belonging to
:05:53. > :05:56.Abyei does not automatically imply that it falls in the north, and
:05:56. > :06:00.there was no explicit statement in the ruling that said it did.
:06:00. > :06:03.could discuss this to kingdom come, but this is not the end. This
:06:03. > :06:07.should be something you sorted out with the government and Khartoum,
:06:07. > :06:11.nobody else can sort it out. But what is clear is that as a result
:06:11. > :06:16.of your troops pushing into Heglig - you can characterise Italian like,
:06:16. > :06:19.but that is what happened - he lost a lot of international support. Ban
:06:19. > :06:23.Ki-Moon said the Act was an infringement on the sub-committee
:06:23. > :06:28.of Sudan and it was a clear the illegal act. Those comments are
:06:28. > :06:32.based on a misunderstanding of the status of Heglig. We did not want
:06:32. > :06:36.to assert a claim by military means. We wanted to neutralise a town that
:06:36. > :06:40.was being used as a base to attack us. You may have your reasons, but
:06:40. > :06:44.I wanted to address this point, that South Sudan, in the nine or
:06:44. > :06:50.ten months of its existence, seems to have lost a lot of international
:06:50. > :06:52.sympathy because of some of the actions you have taken. And the
:06:52. > :06:58.number one that action was the decision to put your trips all the
:06:58. > :07:05.way into Heglig. Do you regret it? As I said, we did not go into
:07:05. > :07:09.Heglig intentionally. Because you are saying it is not intentional,
:07:09. > :07:12.are you tacitly nous intimidated was a mistake? I don't think it was
:07:12. > :07:16.a mistake, because fundamentally we did not want to claim our
:07:16. > :07:20.territories by military means. We are fairly confident, in the south,
:07:20. > :07:25.that if we fall back on the old Borderline, the criteria for
:07:25. > :07:28.determining the status of disputed areas, Heglig would accrue to the
:07:28. > :07:32.Republic of South Sudan. So we had no intention or desire to use
:07:32. > :07:37.military means to enforce a claims. Is that right? I just wonder, if
:07:37. > :07:42.days, days, we have seen crowds in due
:07:42. > :07:45.but burning Sudanese flags, and one of your colleagues in the Cabinet
:07:45. > :07:50.table, and the environment minister, telling crowds that we will win
:07:50. > :08:00.Heglig and Abyei? A clear implication that you will win it by
:08:00. > :08:03.think that is what he meant. People were burning flags. He behaved in a
:08:03. > :08:08.manner that was not befitting in a statement or a head of state, for
:08:08. > :08:11.that matter. The President of Sudan. So people were frustrated. But it
:08:11. > :08:15.is a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy that we will only
:08:15. > :08:20.seek to recover territory is that we have lost through peaceful means.
:08:20. > :08:23.Through peaceful means. So can you here and now one HARDtalk confirmed
:08:23. > :08:28.to me that ordeal security forces, whether they are army or police,
:08:28. > :08:31.will be pulled out of all of the disputed areas? Absolutely.
:08:31. > :08:41.Instructions have already been given to a police force in appeared
:08:41. > :08:41.
:08:41. > :08:45.to pull out. When will they pull out? Very soon. How soon? Very soon.
:08:45. > :08:48.But for the people on the ground, particularly the civilians in Abyei,
:08:49. > :08:53.who feel that they are besieged on both sides, they want to know when
:08:53. > :09:01.they can expect to see this demilitarisation completed. Well,
:09:01. > :09:05.we have already expressed a desire for me demilitarisation. I just
:09:05. > :09:08.wonder if you have learnt a lesson here. You say that it was no big
:09:08. > :09:12.your intention to win by military means, but perhaps you have learned
:09:12. > :09:16.over the last few weeks that if it comes to a shooting match, you are
:09:16. > :09:19.not going to win. President Omar al-Bashir the other day said that
:09:19. > :09:22.the only language they understand in the south is the language of the
:09:23. > :09:26.gun, which prompted a lot of people to look at the military balance.
:09:26. > :09:31.And although you have a lot of people in a military forces, you do
:09:31. > :09:37.not have the aircraft, the tanks, artillery to really compete with
:09:37. > :09:40.the North. And perhaps you have come to realise that. I do not want
:09:40. > :09:45.to go down the path of the Omar al- Bashir, but the fact is we arrive
:09:45. > :09:49.very resilient people. We have no desire or intention to pursue a
:09:49. > :09:52.military conflict with Omar al- Bashir. But if a military conflict
:09:52. > :09:57.is going to be imposed on us by the North, then I think our resilience
:09:57. > :10:01.will enable us to win. Do you think all out war is still a possibility?
:10:01. > :10:04.It is a possibility, but I think it is receding, in view of the
:10:04. > :10:08.decisions that have been taken by the African Union peace and
:10:08. > :10:15.security council, and which we understand will form the basis of
:10:15. > :10:19.the UN Security Council resolution. So you are saying that the focus
:10:19. > :10:24.right now is on diplomacy, not on fighting? Let's pursue that a
:10:24. > :10:28.little bit. The special envoy to this conflict from the African
:10:28. > :10:31.Union said that in essence, there has to be, within the next few days,
:10:31. > :10:35.the beginning of a m dialogue between you and the North,
:10:35. > :10:40.and ultimately there has to be a settlement of the key issue, which
:10:40. > :10:43.is border demarcation, territorial dispute, and the oil issue, over
:10:43. > :10:46.the next three months, and if there is not an agreement over the next
:10:46. > :10:51.three months, then the African Union will impose a binding
:10:51. > :10:54.settlement. Are you prepared to accept that? Absolutely, and I
:10:54. > :10:59.think credit has to go to the African Union for that. The African
:10:59. > :11:02.Union is starting to live up to its responsibilities. So you will be
:11:02. > :11:08.done to buy it? Even if they disagree with what you just told me
:11:08. > :11:12.about the status of Heglig or Abyei, you'll absolutely committed the
:11:12. > :11:16.African Union resolution? Yes, and we are very confident that a case
:11:16. > :11:21.is strong. Well, they're very confident in Khartoum as well. The
:11:21. > :11:26.that they too are being explicit that even if you lose the case, you
:11:26. > :11:33.will abide by it all decisions? Well, cartoon is still dragging its
:11:33. > :11:39.own feet about whether to agree but the African Union resolution or not.
:11:39. > :11:44.Some of your diplomats have said things very differently. One of
:11:44. > :11:46.your senior diplomats in Nairobi said to be news wires the other day
:11:46. > :11:55.that the envoy from the African Union was Patterson, and not
:11:55. > :11:59.credible? -- Patterson. Well, the process leaves something to be
:11:59. > :12:03.desired. But you said you were entirely happy by it and will sign
:12:03. > :12:07.up towards conclusions. It is not the work of the envoy, it is the
:12:07. > :12:13.work of the African Union. But he personifies the African Union
:12:13. > :12:15.diplomatic mission right now. well, we would like to see him work
:12:15. > :12:19.collaboratively with the other African Union organs, because the
:12:19. > :12:29.process that he is leading need support, and the process that has
:12:29. > :12:30.
:12:30. > :12:32.been decided by the African Union... the United Nations Security Council
:12:32. > :12:36.is very concerned about the fighting we have seen in the last
:12:36. > :12:40.few weeks. And they have said to both Juba and Khartoum, that if you
:12:40. > :12:43.do not stop the fighting now, we may well consider sanctions under
:12:43. > :12:48.Article 41. That is not such a big deal for Khartoum, because they
:12:48. > :12:52.have lived with sections for a long time, but it comes back to my point
:12:52. > :12:55.about you losing international sympathy. If there was any talk of
:12:55. > :12:58.sanctions being imposed on South Sudan, that would be a terrible
:12:58. > :13:01.indictment of your strategy, wouldn't it? I can assure you we
:13:01. > :13:08.would not be the reason for triggering tensions under Article
:13:08. > :13:11.41. -- sanctions. But they are actually considering it as the
:13:11. > :13:14.ultimate punishment if you do not sit around the table. So I am
:13:14. > :13:19.asking you, if you consider that looking back over the past few
:13:19. > :13:23.weeks, did just strategy backfired? We have always been around the
:13:23. > :13:27.table. If you read press statements, there is a very clear indication
:13:27. > :13:31.that we want to talk to Khartoum. President Omar al-Bashir has about
:13:31. > :13:33.that he will not sit around the table until he has taught us a
:13:33. > :13:38.lesson, and we have consistently maintained that there is no
:13:38. > :13:42.solution except through dialogue. OK, so we have talked about the
:13:42. > :13:45.territorial dispute and the border, and obviously your positions and
:13:45. > :13:49.cartoons positions are still quite far apart, but you have said that
:13:49. > :13:53.he will accept the African new diplomatic initiative. Let's talk
:13:53. > :13:57.about what underpins all of this, which is oil, and money. The fact
:13:57. > :14:01.is, is it not, that what we have seen in the past few weeks is that
:14:01. > :14:05.the weakness of your new nation has been terrib been terribd. Because you
:14:05. > :14:09.cut off oil production, partly to punish Sudan, because they would
:14:09. > :14:18.not then get the revenues from the Transits. But in so doing, you have
:14:19. > :14:23.decimated urine economy. -- Europe own economy. The point was not to
:14:23. > :14:27.punish Sudan. Once cartoon started confiscating and diverting our oil,
:14:27. > :14:30.in December and January, we hoped that this process would stop.
:14:30. > :14:40.Because all the while we were negotiating what would be a fair
:14:40. > :14:43.
:14:43. > :14:48.transit fee to pay to Khartoum. In doing the deal to accept
:14:48. > :14:53.nationhood, cartoon has seen its revenue fall by up billions of
:14:53. > :14:57.dollars. They have a black hole to fill in their budget. One way to do
:14:58. > :15:02.that is to put up the price of transmitting your oil to the Red
:15:02. > :15:09.Sea port. What would be a fair price for the pipeline transit of
:15:09. > :15:18.your oil to the Red Sea? That is subject to negotiations. Let's talk
:15:18. > :15:23.able part bigger. Khartoum has demanded 36 but that is outrageous.
:15:23. > :15:27.What are you prepared to pay? are already paying the
:15:27. > :15:34.transportation costs and we will pay something that is reasonable
:15:34. > :15:43.MIT of international standard practice. You say $36 per barrel is
:15:43. > :15:53.unreasonable, what is reasonable? Others pay 41 per barrel. So less
:15:53. > :15:57.
:15:57. > :16:01.than a dollar? He was saying something like 60. It seems that
:16:01. > :16:10.what you're saying is not realistic. We're looking for a fair commercial
:16:10. > :16:15.deal. The point of departure for Khartoum is that they have to get
:16:15. > :16:21.the welfare and the way at our expense. But the oil pipeline that
:16:21. > :16:24.you need to use goes through their territory. But the people of South
:16:24. > :16:29.Sudan find it very difficult to accept that they will be
:16:29. > :16:33.blackmailed into paying these outrageous sums. This goes to the
:16:33. > :16:37.viability of state in your current strategy. I have seen some of their
:16:37. > :16:44.ministers talking airily about building a new pipeline, perhaps
:16:44. > :16:48.through Kenya.Best in the massive infrastructure project that
:16:48. > :16:53.represents when you win a possibly going to be at war with Sudan? They
:16:53. > :16:58.have an air force and you don't, they can bomb ate any pipeline
:16:59. > :17:02.project they choose to target. He will invest and that? I think we're
:17:02. > :17:07.likely to be able to attract investors because of the oil
:17:07. > :17:12.resources we still have. Even in the current instability? I do not
:17:12. > :17:21.think it will last. If President Bashir is on the warpath, it will
:17:21. > :17:24.be disastrous. He is trying to wage and political difficulties.
:17:24. > :17:28.have political difficulties of Tyrone. We Tyrone. We Tyrone. We
:17:28. > :17:38.the queues for fuel because of the lack of production in your own
:17:38. > :17:47.country. We have seen the value of your privacy plummet against the US
:17:47. > :17:57.dollar since his halting of well We are fully aware of the
:17:57. > :17:57.
:17:57. > :18:49.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 51 seconds
:18:49. > :18:57.The flow of oil will not be disrupted or confiscated. We will
:18:57. > :19:01.be more than happy to sign an agreement. When you said two years,
:19:01. > :19:11.did you mean two years of difficulties or two years where we
:19:11. > :19:11.
:19:11. > :19:14.anticipate we will not be exporting oil this pipeline? Which is it? I
:19:14. > :19:19.looked at John Ministry of Finance figures and oil is 98% of your
:19:19. > :19:23.state revenues. You can't live without 98% of your revenues.
:19:24. > :19:29.have already put in place the austerity measures. It will be more
:19:29. > :19:34.than austerity if you have lost 90% of your income. We can survive.
:19:34. > :19:37.South Sudan has been at war for close that -- close to three
:19:37. > :19:44.decades. We have had nothing for all this time. We can adapt. It
:19:44. > :19:51.will be tough, but I think we will survive. Should I take it that this
:19:51. > :19:56.pipeline project, which you said is realistic will start very quickly
:19:56. > :20:05.hitting towards Kenya? We would like it to start as soon as
:20:05. > :20:09.possible. Negotiations are under way. Who will invest? In I would
:20:09. > :20:17.not like to say that right now. There are countries that have
:20:17. > :20:22.expressed interest. focus has been about the dispute
:20:22. > :20:28.with Khartoum. People may be surprised to learn that actually,
:20:28. > :20:37.some of the nastiest violence we have seen in your country does not
:20:37. > :20:45.the North, but is an internal problem. According to the UN, there
:20:45. > :20:50.are perhaps 200,000 civilians displaced and maybe 3,000 people
:20:50. > :20:54.killed in ethnic and tribal conflict. If any government's first
:20:54. > :21:03.priority has to be to deliver security to its own people, you're
:21:03. > :21:09.feeling. We have started a campaign of disarmament and it is going well.
:21:09. > :21:14.The problem of proliferation of arms in the hands of the civilian
:21:14. > :21:20.population is that it is manu
:21:20. > :21:24.manufacturing -- manufacture arms. But we're starting the disarmament
:21:24. > :21:27.campaign and it will be extended to other areas. At the end of last
:21:27. > :21:34.year, the minority rights international conference suggested
:21:34. > :21:40.that if things did not change quickly, there was a potential
:21:40. > :21:46.genocide looming. Do you fear that could be true? Not at all. That is
:21:46. > :21:54.a huge exaggeration. And efforts are being directly supported by the
:21:54. > :21:59.when. They can attest to the fact that the programme is successful.
:21:59. > :22:07.We are talking about security or we could talk about corruption, which
:22:07. > :22:11.has been an issue for Euro administration. Their allegations
:22:11. > :22:17.that money has disappeared with the new adminis new adminisIt does to the
:22:17. > :22:21.question of what there you and your fellow ministers are really showing
:22:21. > :22:29.the competence that is necessary to lead your nation in very difficult
:22:29. > :22:33.circumstances. I can confidently say that regarding the war against
:22:33. > :22:37.corruption, significant strikes have been made of. A deadline was
:22:37. > :22:47.set for all senior government officials to make a declaration of
:22:47. > :22:47.
:22:47. > :22:52.you do that? Absolutely. What are you worth? I don't know. It is
:22:52. > :23:00.supposed to be confidential. just told me you happily made the
:23:00. > :23:05.declaration. You must know what to declare. I did and they do but it
:23:05. > :23:13.is supposed to be confidential. is not transparent if it is
:23:13. > :23:16.confidential. The law says you make a confidential declaration of your
:23:16. > :23:21.assets and liabilities and if something transpires, have that
:23:21. > :23:31.information can be used. That is a decision that can't be taken by the
:23:31. > :23:32.
:23:32. > :23:41.public at large, it is all secret. They can't draw conclusions. There
:23:41. > :23:48.is an anti-corruption commission which this conflict with Sudan --
:23:48. > :23:56.north Sudan is a useful distraction for your government given the other
:23:56. > :24:01.problems South Sudan faces? Khartoum it is a useful distraction.
:24:01. > :24:09.We do not want to occupy the areas we think belong to us by force.