Sudan Links Roundup

Maybe South Sudan isn't losing the PR war after all. Though their taking of Heglig brought international condemnation, at least it brought some attention.

“The government of Sudan has never stopped bombing our innocent civil population even after signing Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). They have continued to do so and indeed intensified air attacks in August 2011 after South Sudan officially became an independent state but the international community has never come out to condemn them," Kiir said on Friday. 

And so Mark Tran from the Guardian just took a trip to Juba,

and there have been a few other "backlash" pieces, including;

Armin Rosen in the The New Republic

by assigning equal blame for the conflict, the Obama administration handed a strategic victory to the same regime in Khartoum responsible for the worst atrocities during the Darfur conflict, while alienating Washington’s Western-leaning partners in Juba. 

Baroness Cox on the Today Programme calling for Britain to impose diplomatic sanctions on Khartoum, saying that

"Khartoum is the major perpetrator of aggression"

and the President of Samaritan's Purse goes as far as calling for military intervention to destroy the runways used by SAF bombers (via @Laurenist);

Now I am asking [the US President] and his administration to do something that may sound unusual for a preacher of the Gospel. I am asking him to use our Air Force to destroy Mr. Bashir’s airstrips - the airstrips his military uses to launch bombers that carry out daily attacks in the Nuba Mountains. The Nuba people don’t want American soldiers - they can fight for themselves. They just want to be free. But they have no defense against bombs dropping from the sky on their villages, schools and hospitals.

Meanwhile Western diplomats have continued to be a little less than diplomatic about Juba in coversation with journalists;

1.   
   BBCAndrewH Arrived in Juba, South Sudan. Gloomy western diplomats blaming "smug, incompetent" govt for leading country towards war and economic chaos. 27 Apr 2012 from web
2. this quote was generated by twtQuote  
   

I'll leave the last word to the President of the "smug, incompetent" government in Juba;

"The Security Council of the United Nations and the international community including the African union and the Arab league has never come out to condemn and hold Sudanese government in Khartoum, particularly President Bashir and his groups responsible for atrocities they have committed against the people of South Sudan and the three areas," he said. 

"They only come out to condemn us when we react to aggression by the Sudanese government within our territories," president Kiir told a crowd with placards calling for immediate border demarcation.

The people of South Sudan and North Sudan deserve better than the pathetic pandering by the international community to a thuggish murderous Khartoum government.