Above: Map of Heglig location

Crisis avoided in Sudan as the former Southern Rebels, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) agreed to enter back into discussions with the government, the split was brought about in October, when the SPLM accused Khartoum ( Khartoum (الخرطوم ) is the capital of Sudan and of Khartoum State ) of stalling a peace treaty agreed in 2005. The SPLM leader Salva Kiir met President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and worked out the main issues that were holding the process back. This was confimred by a spokesman for the SPLM Secretary : General Pagan Amum. “We have achieved a lot… We have resolved all the outstanding issues that caused the crisis, with the exception of Abyei,” advised Amum.

The war is as per usual about money, the contention is over the oil rich area of Abyei. Around 2 million or 200,000 depending on who you talk to people have died so far in this conflict started over oil. 2.5 million people displaced seems to be realistic.

Also within the region of Abyei a Revolutionary group, ” the Justice and Equality Movement have begun bombing Chinese owned oil filelds. The justice and equality movement are not happy with the situation of Chinese ownership of various oil fields and vow more assaults on Chinese installations. Mr. Ibrahim leader of Darfur’s rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement said the rebels had two dead and several injured in the attack but alleged this was vastly outnumbered by Government casualties.

Hours later, the Sudanese military said in a statement that reports of rebel “takeover” were “baseless” and that the oil field was “stable.”

The Military said what happened was that a group of about 20 persons mounted on two trucks tried to attack Al Rahaow camp outside the Dukhra oil field in south Kordofan, but that at the camp entrance one of the trucks overturned and the other sped away.

Mr. Ibrahim (JEL) said, the attack occurred in the Heglig area (which produces 5% of Sudans total oil or 20,000 barrels a day) in Sudan’s Kordofan region, about 435 miles (700 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, and just east of Darfur. He said a large number of vehicles, weapons and ammunition were also seized and that “oil production has been halted in Heglig.”

Sounds like a lot of pissed off people with big sticks but who do you believe? The Justice league advise they will be blowing up more oil fields owned by the Chinese and call on the world to help them get China out of Sudan. Sounds a bit like Iraq??