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En France, la primaire est née à gauche, et c’est celle du PS qui sert désormais de modèle parce que la plus achevée, celle de 2011, a permis de désigner sans heurt un futur président. Sur les modalités, l’UMP n’a pas cherché à innover. Au-delà des clivages politiques, faut-il en conclure que, face aux mêmes obstacles et aux mêmes enjeux, les grands partis de gouvernement sont contraints aux mêmes choix ? Mieux, faut-il croire que ces mêmes choix produisent les mêmes effets sur les acteurs de cette compétition ?

Cet article François Bazin : Les lois de la primaire. Celles d’hier, celles de demain. est apparu en premier sur Fondapol.

Article paru dans Le Figaro du 9 juin 2015. Pour le journaliste François Bazin, cette nouvelle procédure de sélection des candidats à la présidentielle révèle la perte de légitimité des partis politiques.
La procédure dite de la primaire est une de ces innovations qui modifie en profondeur les règles de fonctionnement du système politique français.

Cet article François Bazin – Le Figaro – La primaire ou la fin de la rencontre d’un homme et d’un peuple est apparu en premier sur Fondapol.

The fourth edition of the Personnel Recovery Controller and Planner Course (PRCPC), a project initiated by the European Defence Agency, took place from 25 May to 5 June 2015 in Veszprém, Hungary. Organised and hosted by the Hungarian Defence Forces at the Air Command and Control Centre (ACCC), the exercise gathered 20 students from 8 countries.

Students from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom benefitted from the knowledge and experience of a cadre of instructors from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, and the United States. Personnel recovery (PR) is usually defined as the sum of military, diplomatic and civil efforts needed to ensure the recovery and reintegration of isolated civilian or military personnel.

During the course, the newly-developed EDA’s Personnel Recovery Functional Area Service Advanced Technology Demonstrator (PR FAS ATD) was successfully tested and evaluated. This system is designed to provide headquarters-level PR staff with a planning tool to manage PR missions. It has been developed as part of EDA’s work to improve interoperability amongst European armed forces in the field of personnel recovery.

The next EU PRCPC will take place from 23 November to 4 December 2015 in Italy (Poggio, Renatico) and will be organised by the European Personnel Recovery Centre (EPRC). During the course, the final test of the PR FAS ATD will take place and should then allow the system to be available to all EDA participating Member States.

More information

The EDA PRCPC project was established on 30 May 2013 as an EDA Category B project, under the lead of Sweden. As of today, it gathers six contributing EU Member States (cMS): Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden. On 31st May 2015 the cMS agreed to extend the PRCPC Cat B project until 30 May 2017. EPRC is a potential candidate for the continuation of the project.

• Successful personnel recovery course held in Sweden (6 March 2015)

 

Am 7. Juni wird in der Türkei ein neues Parlament gewählt. Was waren Themen des Wahlkampfs? Wer...

Die Verteidigungspolitik der USA wird gegenwärtig durch drei wesentliche Entwicklungstrends geprägt, wie die Analyse in dieser Studie zeigt. Erstens sind die innenpolitischen Rahmenbedingungen – öffentliche Meinung, Haltung der Parteien und finanzielle Ausstattung – für Washingtons globales militärisches Handeln schwieriger geworden. Allerdings bleibt der Einfluss dieser Faktoren auf die amerikanische Verteidigungspolitik insgesamt sehr begrenzt. Zweitens zeichnet sich die Politik von Präsident Obama durch Zurückhaltung beim Einsatz der Streitkräfte im Ausland sowie durch eine Präferenz für den »leichten Fußabdruck« aus. Darunter fällt auch das Bestreben, die Sicherheitskräfte in Partnerländern aufzubauen, um so die Notwendigkeit direkter Militärinterventionen durch die USA zu minimieren. Drittens verfolgt die amerikanische Regierung nicht erst seit Obama eine langfristig angelegte Transformations-Agenda. Diese rückt die technologischen Fähigkeiten zur globalen Machtprojektion in den Mittelpunkt und nimmt dabei Einschnitte beim Umfang der Streitkräfte in Kauf. Für das transatlantische Verhältnis haben die zu beobachtenden Grundtrends der US-Verteidigungspolitik ambivalente Auswirkungen. Sie bringen sowohl neue Kooperationsmöglichkeiten als auch zusätzliches Konfliktpotential mit sich.

Dans un rapport publié mardi, l'Unicef interpelle le gouvernement français pour ses manquements en matière de droits de l'enfant. Un mineur sur cinq vivrait sous le seuil de pauvreté dans l'Hexagone, dénonce l'agence de l'ONU.

Le sommet du G7 s’est achevé hier. Les médias français font le point sur les engagements pris par les sept plus grandes puissances mondiales réunies ce week-end. Tous relèvent particulièrement les décisions prises concernant le climat et la Russie.

La commission électorale du Burundi a proposé lundi un nouveau calendrier électoral que le président Nkurunziza doit entériner par décret. Ce dernier a d’ores et déjà affirmé que sa candidature à un troisième mandat était "non négociable".

A DNR felkelői nyilvánosságra hoztak egy olyan felvételt, amelyen jól látszik, hogy Donyecket gyújtóbombával lövik – írja a Zvezda TV. Az éjjeli felvételen jól látszanak a gyújtóbombák fényei. Emellett automata fegyverekkel is tüzeltek.

Quand Joseph Agbor Effim est arrivé au Mali au début de l'année 2014, il a été déployé à Kidal, une ville du nord du pays, théâtre d'affrontements entre rebelles et forces gouvernementales. Son rôle : participer aux efforts destinés à trouver une solution durable à la crise récurrente dans ce pays et plus particulièrement s'assurer que les droits des prisonniers soient respectés.

A l'occasion d'une réunion du Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies consacrée à la situation en Côte d'Ivoire, la Représentante spéciale du Secrétaire général de l'Organisation dans ce pays, Aïchatou Mindaoudou, s'est dite confiante mardi pour l'avenir du pays à quatre mois de l'élection présidentielle.

Le Haut-Commissaire des Nations Unies aux droits de l'homme, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, s'est dit mardi préoccupé face aux actions de plus en plus violentes et menaçantes d'une milice pro-gouvernementale au Burundi, estimant que cela pourrait faire basculer une situation déjà extrêmement tendue.

By Eric Reeves

On June 30th of this month, the current authorization of the UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) expires; it is not at all clear that it will be renewed by the Security Council, and if it is, the Khartoum regime will likely insist upon compromises in the nature of the force and its mandate. Several well-informed sources indicate that West Darfur is likely to be a point of compromise, with UNAMID withdrawing in all meaningful form from the region, leaving only a few hundred men in uniform. This is not nearly enough to provide security, escort relief convoys, or even report in a meaningful way on violence affecting civilians. And if calm relative to Central and North Darfur now, we only need recall the explosion of militia violence in early 2008 to understand that another such upsurge in military attacks would be completely beyond UNAMID's ability to respond.

In short, Darfur seems to have moved from being an international human rights cause célèbre to an inconvenient, if ghastly reality. How did this happen?

THAT WAS THEN

There was a time when Darfur, in western Sudan, galvanized an extraordinary coalition of activists in this country. The National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime in Khartoum had begun in 2003 a genocidal counter-insurgency against the region's African tribal groups, perceived as the civilian base of support for rebel groups. So potent was the campaign to halt genocide in Darfur that it forced its way onto the national agenda. Both houses of Congress—in a unanimous, bipartisan vote of July 2004—declared that genocide was occurring in Darfur. Others followed suit, including then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 2004. His testimony was based on very substantial research along the Chad/Darfur border in August 2004. Human rights groups, genocide scholars, church and synagogue congregations, and legions of students made this remote and unknown region, in the very middle of Africa, a cause to be reckoned with.

As a presidential candidate Barack Obama saw the electoral possibilities of a strong stance on Darfur. He chided the Bus administration for what he saw as its excessive accommodation of Khartoum's ethnically-targeted destruction. He declared fulsomely, invoking Rwanda and Bosnia, that “the United States has a moral obligation anytime you see humanitarian catastrophes”:

“When you see a genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia or in Darfur, that is a stain on all of us, a stain on our souls. We can't say ‘never again' and then allow it to happen again, and as a president of the United States I don't intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.” (video clip at | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEd583-fA8M#t=15 )

And early in his presidency Obama again characterized Darfur as the site of “genocide.” That was then. Seven years later we hear nothing of consequences from the administration about Darfur.

THIS IS NOW

Largely as a consequence of this loss of focus, today the Darfur genocide—the first genocide of the 21st century and the longest one in more than a century—is about to achieve another distinction. It will be the first genocide in which the victims are abandoned. The UNAMID force authorized in 2007 is on the verge of being gutted and ultimately eliminated altogether. In three weeks, unless the UN Security Council votes to re-authorize the force, it will be obliged to leave. This fact gives the Khartoum regime what it considers irresistible leverage in negotiations that are ongoing, with what still appear to be major disagreements between the UN and African Union on one side and Khartoum on the other.

The stakes are extraordinarily high. More than 3 million people have been internally displaced or turned into refugees in eastern Chad; almost 500,000 were displaced last year alone. Mortality estimates vary, but we must of necessity speak of several hundred thousands of deaths—perhaps half a million—from violence and its consequences, and all indications are that mortality rates are rising along with acute malnutrition. The victims continue to be overwhelmingly civilians from the African tribal groups that have been targeted for more than twelve years.

It seems perverse that génocidaires in Khartoum are being allowed to decide the fate of their victims in Darfur, but in fact they are insisting that an "exit strategy"—foolishly agreed to in principle by the UN Security Council last August—be executed as rapidly as possible. The force has already been cut by 10,000 and stands at approximately at 17,000 uniformed personnel. The regime wants another 15,000 gone this year.

Criticism of UNAMID is longstanding; indeed it preceded official deployment of the civilian-protection mission in January 2008. For the mission was set up to fail, largely because Khartoum was given excessive control over the deployment of personnel and equipment. This led to poor troop quality, with the regime rejecting many highly qualified peacekeeping contributions (such as a Swedish-Norwegian engineering battalion). Essential weaponry and aircraft were also denied. Despite a status-of-forces agreement that was supposed to give UNAMID unrestricted access, Khartoum has systematically obstructed, delayed or compromised countless protection and monitoring missions.

As badly as UNAMID has performed, however, it is all that allows international humanitarian organizations to remain in Darfur. If UNAMID withdraws, or is hopelessly compromised, these organizations may well be forced to end their work. To date, some 25 to 30 major international relief organizations have been expelled by Khartoum or withdrawn because of insecurity. This has occurred against a backdrop of extreme malnutrition in many locations, a desperate lack of clean water and sanitation, and a rapidly collapsing system for providing primary medical care.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

At this very moment decisions are being made that will affect the lives and security of millions of people in Darfur, and yet we hear nothing of significance from the Obama administration about the urgency of preserving key elements of the force. Yes, a facile international chorus has declared "Darfur won't be abandoned," but there are reasons to be skeptical. Leading this chorus is the expedient Hervé Ladsous, head of UN peacekeeping operations, who not so long ago argued that a drawdown of UNAMID was justified by improved security conditions, even as violence has escalated for three years.

Moreover, a brute geopolitical fact defines current planning. UNAMID must be re-authorized before June 30. But Khartoum has veto-wielding friends on the Security Council in the form of China and Russia; they are likely to support the regime even in its most unreasonable demands. Russia is of particular concern, given President Vladimir Putin's general hostility to any Western initiative. In a revealing show of perverse solidarity, Russia sided with Khartoum in rejecting a recent report by Human Rights Watch that authoritatively documented the mass rape last fall of more than 220 girls and women by Khartoum's army troops in the town of Tabit. The evidence in the report is so overwhelming that the Russian denial of its findings suggests an unwillingness to look at Darfur's realities except through Khartoum's eyes.

Depending on the character of the newly authorized force—assuming one is authorized at all—humanitarian organizations may be forced to withdraw from what is already a terribly insecure environment, or at least parts of Darfur. The epidemic of sexual violence will continue to accelerate, with the Arab militias most responsible continuing to operate with total impunity. More than half Darfur's pre-war population of 6 million people are in need of assistance, and yet humanitarian capacity is shrinking. UN agencies such as the World Food Program cannot function without implementing partners, precisely the function that has been fulfilled by the organizations contemplating withdrawal. If they leave, the death toll could be catastrophic.

We need to hear President Obama's voice now; we need to hear the same moral passion on which he so effectively traded while campaigning in 2008—seven years ago. This will require foregoing the unseemly, finally disgraceful trade-off his administration has engaged in with the Khartoum regime: the U.S. offers the possibility of rapprochement, including lifting longstanding economic sanctions, in exchange for receiving putatively valuable counter-terrorism intelligence, and a possible listening post in Khartoum. The new embassy, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, has already been built but does not yet house the listening and intercept equipment that will make it so valuable, in addition to providing an actual presence in the middle of the region that seems destined to become the major battleground against radical Islam. The Obama administration intelligence community lusts for full access to the embassy.

The value of the counter-terrorism intelligence to date is dubious, and was challenged vigorously by former Senator Russ Feingold while he was chairman of the Africa subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a member of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence. Perhaps more telling are the leaked minutes of a meeting of senior military and security officials last August 31st: Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein is recorded as scoffing at what the U.S. actually gets in the way of intelligence, and the significance of what is deliberately being withheld about radical Islamist, terrorists, and the international Islamic movement.

This deal should never have been made (as candidate Obama declared when chiding the Bush administration) and must surely give way before moral importance of avoiding a deepening “stain on our souls,” the inevitable consequence of leaving the people of Darfur completely at the mercy of Khartoum's regular and brutal militia forces.

The United States must take the lead and, with Britain and France, muscle-up politically in the Security Council; otherwise the fate of Darfur will be dictated by the very men who began the genocide 12 years ago. This would be unprecedented in the grim history of genocide.

[Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College and the author of author of Compromising with Evil: An Archival History of Greater Sudan, 2007-2012.

June 8, 2015 (JUBA) - Youth leadership of the South Sudanese armed opposition faction of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) led by former vice president, Riek Machar, urged the civil populations in Bahr el Ghazal region, home to president Salva Kiir, not to panic as rebels began to intensify war to depose the president and called on the fighters to take the war to Warrap state.

People fleeing to the bush from Bor when the South Sudanese rebels attacked the Jonglei capital in December 2013. (Photo: John Actually/ST)

“I would want to inform our people in Bahr el Ghazal and more especially those in Lakes, Western and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states to not panic. Our mission is to free them from destitution and imposed marginalization by a brute and tyrannical regime that supposedly liberated them from regimes with similar behaviours,” said Peter Mabior Riiny, deputy chairman of the SPLM-IO youth league.

“These so-called liberators in Juba have indeed become the colonisers of our people and so there is a strong need for second liberation,” he told Sudan Tribune on Monday.

The opposition youth leader called on the civil populations to not fear their fighters, explaining that they were only engaging forces loyal to president Salva Kiir in the area and so target government institutions.

He cited recent developments in Achana, a strategic area on the supply route linking Northern Bahr el Ghazal and the rest of the states in the country and to the neighbouring states in Sudan in which they released several captured chiefs of the area, including a payam administrator, Elijah Noon.

“This is to inform them (civilians) that we are there to liberate them and not to harm anyone in those areas we are operating in. The engagement will be limited to areas occupied by government forces only,” Riiny further explained.

He dismissed reports alleging that the opposition fighters under the overall command of General Dau Aturjong in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, home to the current South Sudanese army's chief of general staff, General Paul Malong Awan, were receiving foreign support in form of weapons and mercenaries to fight on their side.

“This is not true. There are no foreign forces fighting on our side. The forces are 100% South Sudanese. Our forces are purely South Sudanese sons and daughters. We are therefore urging our people to be patient and remain calm as we are trying our best to free them from the fangs of oppressors,” he said.

TAKE WAR TO WARRAP STATE

Riiny urged the youth to join the struggle and also take the war to president Salva Kiir's home area of Warrap state, arguing that the president did not feel the horrors of the war because his home area was not affected by the current violence as his relatives were not displaced.

“I urge our youth in greater Bahr el Ghazal and elsewhere in the country to join the movement in earnest so that all of us fight together to liberate this country from the bondage of dictatorship, nepotism, corruption, incompetence and genocidal acts by taking the war closer to the bases of these belligerents because until that is done, they will not know the country is at war,” Riiny further stressed.

He was echoing other similar voices in the past who allegedly said president Kiir's tribal leadership cared less about war being fought in greater Upper Nile region as this was destroying and displacing the people and properties of populations in Upper Nile far from his home area.

Rebels claim that they were gaining momentum in taking the war to greater Bahr el Ghazal and Equatoria regions in the final push to put pressure on president Kiir to step aside or fully commit to the peace process.

(ST)

June 8, 2015 (WAU) – Abyei Administration Area (AAA) and Western Bahr el Ghazal state on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cooperate in the experience sharing of institutional set ups and capacity building for the displaced officials of Abyei region.

An officer from the UN peacekeeping mission in Abyei (UNISFA) on patrol in the disputed region, which is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan (AFP)

The document signed in Wau was inked on behalf of Western Bahr el Ghazal state governor by Tom Ismail Jinei, secretary general of the state council of ministers, while Arop Deng, coordinator for Abyei, signed on behalf of Abyei Administrative Area.

The cooperation agreement was for Western Bahr el Ghazal state to share experience with Abyei on its government clusters of governance, services and economy. For instance, Western Bahr el Ghazal state's ministry of information will support Abyei area in capacity building in different media, radio, TV and training on journalism reporting.

The cluster service also agreed to share on the level of health policy and tentative work plan and job descriptions including training opportunities, clinical officers' registration midwifery and many others.

The ministry of education on its part will be sharing information with Abyei administration the ministry's structure at the level of counties [districts] and payam [sub-district] levels as well as establishing of national technical secondary schools and boarding schools in the region.

Meanwhile the commission of art in Western Bahr el Ghazal state will be giving training in sports to talented young people from Abyei in the areas of drama, music, folklore culture collection, fine arts, organizing festival and planning and preserving culture artifacts, historical and burial sites.

“Wau Centre for music and culture will be ready to admit candidates from Abyei Administration Area for music training of six months in the areas of guitar, key board, drama, music and other arts technical needs,” the agreement stated.

Western Bahr el Ghazal state ministry of Finance will also help to train finance officials from Abyei in financial administration including revenue collection and revenue authority act, tax and non-tax operating schedule.

The AAA is a body controlled by the Ngok Dinka political leaders close to the SPLM but it is leader Edward Lino joined the opposition faction led by the former vice-president Riek Machar.

Sudan and South Sudan failed to agree on who is eligible to participate in a referendum to determine the future of the disputed area. Khartoum and Juba also didn't agree on joint administrative institution despite an agreement signed in June 2011.

(ST)

Americas

• The cost of the F-35A engine fire last June has been calculated as $50 million by the investigation board responsible for looking into the failure of the third-stage rotor of the engine fan module, with the fire resulting in significant damage to the aircraft. The fire temporarily grounded the F-35 fleet worldwide and led to red faces when the Marine Corps were prevented from demonstrating their F-35B at Farnborough. Prime contractor Lockheed Martin was awarded a $920.4 million advanced acquisition contract last week, while F-35As were scheduled to take part in upcoming USMC exercises for the first time last week.

• The US and Japanese governments have successfully conducted a test firing of the Standard Missile 3 Block IIA at the Point Mugu Sea Range in California. The SM-3 is scheduled to enter service by 2018, with both nations having invested $1 billion each into the program.

• Raytheon has been awarded a $10.6 million contract to provide testing equipment for assessing the Small Diameter Bomb II on the FA-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft, including jettison test vehicles and instrumented measurement vehicles, with these presumably to assess the future viability of using the SDBII with Super Hornets. The SDBII recently passed Milestone C, facilitating its progression to low rate initial production by manufacturer Raytheon.

Europe

• As the British Army’s Thales WK450 Watchkeeper UAV heads toward Full Operating Capability, the responsibility for personnel training on the system is being transitioned from contractor services to the Army’s own program. The first course run by British Army personnel will take place in October, with the Watchkeeper deployed to Afghanistan last year, equipped with new synthetic aperture radar and ground moving target indication capabilities.

• Airbus is reportedly planning to resume test flights of its A400M transport aircraft, following the crash of one aircraft during a test flight on 9th May. The aircraft saw three engines freeze as a result of a software problem, with the resulting crash killing four crew members.

• As part of the British government’s push for privatization in the nation’s defense apparatus, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has invited bids from industry as it seeks to privatize the British Armed Forces’ fire and rescue services. The Defence Fire Risk Management Organisation is the organization in question, with industry teams competing against an internal MoD bid. The publicly-owned Defence Support Group was sold to Babcock International in December last year, whilst the Government Pipeline and Storage System was sold to a Spanish company earlier this year.The government is also mulling the sale of some of its Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) arm, the multi-billion dollar procurement agency which it attempted to partially privatize in a 2013. That effort failed and has subsequently been heavily criticized.

• Work has begun on the second of three Royal Navy Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs), with BAE Systems cutting steel at the firm’s Glasgow shipyard. The first OPV has been under construction since October, with the River-Class Batch II vessels an important bridge-buy prior to the introduction of the Royal Navy’s future Type 26 Frigates, with the $560 million construction contract sustaining industry capability in the interim.

Middle East

• Kuwait is talking to the Italians regarding a sale of Eurofighters, in a potential $4.5 billion deal comprising between 24 and 28 of the jets. The Kuwaitis are looking to replace their F/A-18 Hornet fleet, with a separate $3 billion deal slated for Super Hornets thought to be in the works alongside the Eurofighter negotiations.

• Iraq has reportedly received a third of the Mi-28NE helicopters it ordered alongside Mi-35M helicopters. The first batch of these two helicopter models were delivered in July last year, with the first Mi-28 flights taking place in September The country is thought to have ordered fifteen Mi-28s and twenty-five Mi-35s, but precise numbers have not been officially disclosed. Russia is also looking to improve its Mi-28 fleet.

Asia

• Pakistan is reportedly preparing to assemble a Chinese Type 039A Yuan-class submarine at the country’s Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works. This follows an order for eight boats early last month.

Today’s Video

• Iraq’s first batch of Mi-28NEs…

An underground storage site with more than 200 kilograms (over 441 pounds) of explosives was found in Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee announced on Tuesday.

Depuis le début de l'année 2015, plus de 55 000 migrants ont débarqué sur les côtes du sud du pays et tout laisse supposer que cela ira en augmentant. Rome doit donc trouver des solutions pour désengorger le sud. D'où la décision de transférer au cours des prochaines heures des milliers de migrants vers des régions du nord. Mais les gouverneurs de celles-ci, notamment la Lombardie et la Vénétie, ne veulent pas, dixit, « un clandestin de plus ».

June 07, 2015 (JUBA) – South Sudan is set to unveil its first-ever coins into the market during the fourth independence anniversary on 9 July, a government official disclosed.

South Sudan Pounds (ST)

Cabinet affairs minister, Martin Ellia Lomoro told reporters that the council of ministers approved what the ministry of finance and central bank officials had presented last week.

“The introduced coins range from denominations of 50, 20 and 10 piasters," he said.

Presently, the South Sudanese pound units are in form of one, five, 10, 25, 50 and 100 dominations, restricting buyers to quantity purchase of items like nails and razor blaze.

Lomoro said the introduction of these coins would enable traders relax their prices.

“So I think it is another milestone that the council of minister had on Friday,” he said, though that could not certainly change the souring prices of items in the market, as the South Sudanese currency continues losing value against the United States dollar ($).

The coins, Lomoro said, would have symbols representing the Greater Equatoria, Upper Nile and Bahr Al Ghazal regions, unlike the current notes with the potrait of the late South Sudanese leader and founder of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) party.

(ST)

June 8, 2015 (RUMBEK) - Clashes erupted between Lakes state pastoralists armed youth and a group of unknown gunmen in Maridi county of Western Equatoria state on Monday morning.

Cueirial Akech, chairman of Dinka traders in Maridi county told Sudan Tribune on Monday that clashes erupted at midnight on Sunday when unknown person threw hand grenade into a cattle camp, killing seven cows on the spot and left many more cows with injuries.

He said that when traders cows owners opened a case to the police, asking the state government to identify who killed their cows the same group ambushed them again, killing one of their colleagues.

“It was at night when unidentified person killed seven cows with hand grenade. So as the leader of traders of Dinka in this cattle camp, I moved to police and opened the police case seeking their criminal to be arrested. Very sad indeed a group ambushed us on the road and started firing at us/ The killed one person and now we are fighting in self-defence,” he said.

However, the county's executive director, John Ezekias Paul, said the shooting followed a grenade attack on a cattle camp on Monday night at Sika-Rumbek. He did not disclose who carried out the attacks using grenade.

“One person has been killed in a random shooting this morning in Maridi county in Western Equatoria State,” he said.

Eyewitness confirmed that pastoralist's youth from Lakes state were coming in to reinforce their colleagues and thousands of residents in Maridi are fleeing due to the tension.

They said markets have been closed and some houses burnt down by the Lakes state pastoralists youth.

Maridi county is one of three counties, Mundri and Yambio counties in Western Equatoria state which have faced random fighting in recent weeks.

(ST)