Sudan is determined to engage the South Sudan army in full combat as the escalated military confrontation puts the talks on post-referendum issues in jeopardy.

Although Khartoum has not officially announced the resumption of war, Sudan believes that the move by the South to take over Heglig oil field in South Kordofan, one of the country’s major oil production areas, was a declaration of war and the country will do anything to reclaim its territory.

The Sudanese Deputy High Commissioner to Kenya, Hassan Ali Osman, said the attack on Heglig is an act of aggression and Khartoum will respond with similar aggression.

“Sudan is ready to attack the Southern army anywhere even inside their territory because Sudan has a right to protect its territory and oilfields. The attack on Heglig is to destroy the oilfields and attack our economy by depriving us of the oil revenue,” said Mr Osman.

The announcement was made as reports indicated that Sudanese Air Force began bombarding areas in South Sudan.

According to the country’s Information Minister, Gideon Gatpan Thoar, two MIG planes dropped bombs on a civilian village 7km away from Bentiu, the capital of the oil-rich Unity State, last Friday.

The deputy high commissioner confirmed that Sudan has put a freeze on the post-referendum talks until South Sudan withdraws all its troops from Sudan territory and apologises for what happened in Heglig.

The South, on the other hand, maintained that they were responding to numerous air attacks inside its territory by Khartoum for the last several months under the pretext that they were pursuing rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

On April 9 Khartoum declared all South Sudanese living in the north as foreigners and prevented them from using Sudanese passports. Khartoum also suspended all commercial flights from Khartoum to Juba and vice-versa.
The South Sudan Charge d’Affairs, Kur  Garang, argued that the action of citizenship and suspension of commercial flights could have betrayed Khartoum’s intention to go to war, but South Sudan is not interested in another war and was just acting to protect its territory from aerial attacks within its territory in Unity and West Bahr-el-Ghazal.

The two countries had in late March agreed in principle to sign an agreement on non-aggression and citizenship.  The two agreements were supposed to be signed by presidents Omar al-Bashir and Salva Kiir at a summit in Juba on April 3, but it was later cancelled by Khartoum over the clashes in Heglig.

The summit was to open doors for a more comprehensive agreement on oil revenue that have stalled since December  when Sudan seized Southern oil as compensation for alleged unpaid pipeline transit fees.

South Sudan maintains that it only owes Khartoum $2.6 billion for accrued use of the pipeline, but Khartoum is demanding $3.8 billion that includes transportation, use of the refinery and port fees.

The two countries have also disagreed over the cost of transportation per barrel.  Khartoum is demanding $32 per barrel, while South Sudan insists on $1 per barrel. South Sudan is yet to accept the $25 per barrel proposed by the African Union.

In the meantime, a section of South Sudanese believe that the African Union High Level Implementation Panel led by Thabo Mbeki is  favouring Khartoum and would prefer that the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) takes over the talks.

(Read: South Sudan and Khartoum have many unresolved issues)

But Kur  Garang clarified that the feeling of the people is not the official position of the government. The government is ready to work with anybody that can bring a lasting solution.

“If countries in the East African region feel they can help solve the problems faster then they are welcome because South Sudan is not ready for war,” said Mr Garang.

However, Juba in early April sent a high-level delegation to Nairobi led by the Minister in the office of the President Emmanuel Lowilla and Information minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin, to plead with Kenya to help resolve the border crisis.

The delegation said that South Sudan was not only unhappy with the AU report to the UN Security Council about the recent border clashes but also with the overall mediation process.

The South’s unease with Mbeki’s panel was evident in Addis Ababa during the negotiations for the border and citizenship agreements, when the SPLM delegation first suggested their preference for Igad.

The South Sudan delegation were not happy with the last  Mbeki report to the UN Security Council which blamed the south for refusing to sign a proposal on oil revenue and appealed to the south to stop supporting SPLM-N in southern Kordofan.

With tension increasing, Juba also retaliated on Wednesday and declared northerners living in the south as foreigners.

However, Mr Osman maintained that Khartoum was simply acting according to Comprehensive Peace Agreement which stated that by April 9 the southerners who live in the north would be declared foreigners and vice-versa, unless they legalise their stay with resident permits.

There are less that 1,000 northerners in the south since most of them left soon after the referendum in January 2011.

As the confrontation escalates, Rwanda has agreed to the UN Security Council request for peacekeeping troops in South Sudan. Rwanda will be sending an 850-strong contingent that to the UN Mission in South Sudan.