Independent South Sudan "free at last" - Reuters

A man dances with fireworks during South Sudan's independence day celebrations in Juba July 9, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic

By Alexander Dziadosz and Jeremy Clarke

JUBA | Sun Jul 10, 2011 11:25am EDT

JUBA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of South Sudanese danced and cheered as their new nation declared independence on Saturday, a hard-won separation from the north that still leaves simmering issues of disputed borders and oil payments unresolved.

The president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, stood next to his old civil war foe the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who now leads just the north, at a ceremony to mark the birth of the new nation.

Under-developed, oil-producing South Sudan won its independence in a January referendum -- the climax of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of fighting with the north.

Security forces at first tried to control the streets in the south's dusty capital Juba, but retreated as jubilant crowds moved in overnight and through the day, waving flags, dancing and chanting "South Sudan o-yei, freedom o-yei."

Some revelers fainted in the blistering heat as South Sudan's parliamentary speaker, James Wani Igga, read out the formal declaration of independence.

"We, the democratically elected representatives of the people ... hereby declare Southern Sudan to be an independent and sovereign state," said Igga before Sudan's flag was lowered, the South Sudan flag was raised and the new anthem sung. Kiir took the oath of office.

People threw their hands in the air, embraced and wept. "We got it. We got it," one man said as he hugged a woman.

The presence of Bashir, who campaigned to keep Africa's largest state united, was a key gesture of goodwill.

It will also be an embarrassment to some Western diplomats at the event. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

Bashir gave a speech congratulating the new country. "The will of the people of the south has to be respected," he said, adding that both states had to maintain peace.

RECOGNITION

North Sudan's government was the first to recognize South Sudan on Friday, hours before the split took place, a move that smoothed the way to the division.

The United States, China and Britain signaled their recognition of the state on Saturday, according to official statements and government media reports.

"After so much struggle by the people of South Sudan, the United States of America welcomes the birth of a new nation," said U.S. President Barack Obama, stopping short of announcing any immediate changes in longstanding U.S. sanctions on Sudan that Khartoum has been hoping will be lifted.

Dignitaries including U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the leaders of about 30 African nations attended.

In a possible sign of the South's new allegiances, the crowd included about 200 supporters of Darfur rebel leader Abdel Wahed al-Nur, fighting Khartoum in an eight-year insurgency just over South Sudan's border in the north.

Earlier, the supporters of Nur's rebel Sudan Liberation Army faction stood in a line chanting "Welcome, welcome new state," wearing T-shirts bearing their leader's image. One carried a banner reading "El Bashir is wanted dead or alive."

Traditional dance groups drummed and waved shields and staffs in a carnival atmosphere.

"Free at last," said Simon Agany, 34, as he walked around shaking hands after midnight -- the time when officials said the South actually became the world's newest nation.

The crowd cheered as Kiir unveiled a giant statue of civil war hero John Garang, who signed the peace deal with the north.

Kiir offered an amnesty to rebels fighting his government and promised to bring peace to troubled border areas.

"I would like to take this opportunity to declare amnesty for all those who have taken up arms against Sudan," he said.

"I want to assure the people of Abyei, Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan that we have not forgotten you. When you cry, we cry. When you bleed, we bleed. I pledge to you today that we will find a just peace for all," he said.

SEEDS OF FUTURE TENSION

Khartoum's recognition of the South did not dispel fears of future tensions.

Northern and southern leaders have still not agreed on a list of issues, most importantly the line of the border, the ownership of the disputed Abyei region and how they will handle oil revenues, the lifeblood of both economies.

At the stroke of midnight the Republic of Sudan lost almost a third of its territory and about three quarters of its oil reserves, which are sited in the south. It faced the future with insurgencies in its Darfur and Southern Kordofan regions.

In Khartoum on Saturday, one sign of the new national order was the disappearance of some English-language and SPLM-linked newspapers. The north said it suspended them on Friday as they were published or owned by southerners -- an ominous signal for more than 1 million southerners left in the north.

Many northerners see the separation as a loss of face.

Analysts have long feared a return to war if north-south disputes are not resolved.

Mostly Muslim Sudan fought rebels in the south, where most follow Christianity and traditional beliefs, for all but a few years from the 1950s in civil wars fueled by ethnicity, religion, oil and ideology.

(Additional reporting by Ulf Laessing, Andrew Heavens and Khaled Abdelaziz in Khartoum and Megan Davies at the United Nations; Writing by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Tim Pearce)

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The world's most wanted house guest - Independent

For the past fortnight, Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has been at the centre of a global firestorm. Wanted by Interpol, by the Swedish police, even, briefly, by Scotland Yard, he has been called a terrorist and a revolutionary. Several leading American politicians and commentators have called for him to be killed, while Russia and China have also been loud in their condemnation. Yesterday, Assange appeared at City of Westminster magistrates’ court to fight extradition to Sweden on sex charges that he says are politically motivated. He was granted bail – subject to an appeal by Swedish prosecutors that could see him spend a further 48 hours in custody – on condition that he provides a security of ?200,000 to the court, with a further ?40,000 guaranteed in two sureties of ?20,000 each – and that he spends between now and 11 January as the house guest of Captain Vaughan Smith, a former Grenadier Guard and founder of the journalists' Frontline Club.

He will be under curfew every day from 10pm to 2am and from 10am to 2pm and will be required to report daily to the police from 6pm to 8pm. He must spend every night at Cpt Smith's home and will be electronically tagged.

Mr Assange has for several months been staying as a guest of Cpt Smith and other members at the Frontline Club in London, which he founded seven years ago to stand for independence and transparency, and he has also stayed at Cpt Smith's home in Suffolk. Below is Cpt Smith's account of the past weeks...

Having watched Julian Assange give himself up last week to the British justice system, I took the decision that I would do whatever else it took to ensure that he is not denied his basic rights as a result of the anger of the powerful forces he has enraged.

This decision – which will result in one of the most unusual Christmases I have ever experienced – began to take shape last Monday night, as we gathered round a computer in my home, talking via Skype to Mark Stephens, Julian’s solicitor, in London.

This is how I remember the scene...

It is late in the evening. The screen periodically goes to sleep and Sue, a friend, keeps tapping the keyboard to keep it awake, relighting their faces.

Julian is completely still except his foot, which he rocks from side to side. I remember being told that he always did this when he was concentrating.

I feel that I am intruding, but Julian smiles at me. He does that: brings you in and makes you feel you are important to him when most of us would feel too preoccupied to do such a thing.

Julian is in front of a computer all the time. Immersed and uninterruptable; you feel you could arrive in a clown suit and he wouldn’t notice you.

But often you can gently greet him while he is typing furiously and he will immediately stop what he is doing and report developments for half an hour, well beyond the time you feel he should get back to his work.

The call is finished, and Julian is standing by the fireplace. Miles away. We start discussing the call. A couple of other friends and supporters are there too. Julian is still quiet but he is listening to us. The conversation dries up because the call to Mark has brought it all home.

There seemed to be other options, but they are all of straw. Julian dismisses each as it is suggested. He doesn’t want to look as if he has something to hide. The British police have said they want him and he is going in.

Sue and the other friends start discussing his statement. I get my camera set to film it for them and start working on the logistics. I don’t work for WikiLeaks, but I get drawn in. The police have given less time than expected and he cannot be late.

Julian sits on the sofa. Then he lies down. Then he sleeps. He’s been up for 48 hours. We don’t film any statement.

Then it is morning. He has to be at the police station at 9am, and Mark and the defence team need to see him at 7am. Sue and Jeremy are struggling to get Julian out of the building and trying to keep everyone’s spirits up by joking with him that he is never on time for anything.

We are all exhausted, and I can see that Sue is holding back tears as she bundles Julian into the car. Sue, Julian and I drive off but everyone expects us to be back by the evening.

We get to Mark’s home and it’s still dark. I notice a photographer getting his camera out of the boot of his car as we are about to park behind it, and we drive past. He deserved a picture for getting up that early on a cold morning to stake out Julian’s solicitor’s home, but he didn’t get it.

We meet Mark in a nearby greasy spoon and have breakfast in a back room. Julian is hungry, as he had no dinner last night. Mark gets straight into discussing the case and tells us that the police have changed the station that Julian is to report to.

Mark’s manner is grave but comforting and I can see that Julian and Sue are feeling the pressure. Sue goes out for another cigarette.

Jennifer joins us from Mark’s team and we drive to Kentish Town Police Station. Sue drives, Mark is on his mobile for most of the journey and we are all trying to be quiet. Julian is in the back, between Mark and Jennifer, on his computer, working on the statement.

I look at the familiar glow of the computer screen on Julian’s face, and after a while I notice the computer go to sleep. But Julian doesn’t switch it on again. He stares through it and I look away as I find myself feeling a surge of empathy for him. The statement is not finished as we arrive at the police station.

We drive through large blue gates and bland and besuited policemen and women are around the car. Mark and Julian get out and I try to observe while Sue struggles to park in the absurdly small parking space that she is directed to. I feel intimidated by the brutish ordinariness that this damned place exudes from every structure and person. I have visited police stations and prisons but never felt so uncomfortable before.

We are gathered behind Julian and Mark and a policeman reads out four Swedish charges, but I am not listening. Where I am standing, on one side, I can see Julian’s still face as he hears them. I admire his courage. He knows more clearly than anybody that he pressed the trigger long ago. Or, rather, the return key. The leaks are unstoppable whatever happens to him.

I ponder the disservice to Julian done by the media. With their stockings stuffed by WikiLeaks they dehumanise him with images printed and screened of a cold, calculating Machiavelli pulling strings from secret hideouts. The main hideout, of course, being the Frontline Club, where many of them have interviewed him.

They made him out to be the internet’s Bin Laden. The likeness might be poor, but that was OK because the colours were familiar and bright. Now the focus is on Julian’s court fight, instead of on the opaque political system that his leaks have exposed. The charges that Julian faces have already been dropped once, from a Swedish court that even Glenn Beck, the incendiary US Fox News TV host, rubbishes.

Julian is different to most of us. He is clever and obsessive but also funny and self-deprecating. But he has started something seismic but inevitable, a consequence of modern communications that cannot be stopped. One day we might be governed better as a result. Vengeance by the authorities is weakness here and will not help us face the challenges of the times.

I resolved then, and on that ugly spot, that I would never abandon Julian. It wasn’t any more about whether Wikileaks was right or wrong, for good or bad. It was about standing up to the bully and the question of whether our country, in these historic times really was the tolerant, independent and open place I had been brought up to believe it was and feel that it needs to be. If to fight for this country we will have to fight for its fundamental principles of justice then I declare my position in the ranks.

Vaughan Smith is the founder of the Frontline Club. He has personally stood surety for Julian Assange in court and provided his bail address. The names of Julian's supporters have been changed for their security

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How the official story of Linda Norgrove's death unravelled - Independent

Kim Sengupta on the footage that gave the lie to initial accounts of how the activist died

EPA

Nato soldiers and Afghan forces conduct a search operation in Kunar province in an attempt to rescue Linda Norgrove, who was abducted in the region and later killed

The kidnapping of Linda Norgrove was seen as yet another deeply worrying example of the unravelling security in many parts of Afghanistan and the rising vulnerability faced by foreigners travelling in the country.

It was not the first such abduction, and there seemed to be nothing to suggest that the 36-year-old aid worker's life was in imminent danger. She had been seized in a particularly lawless region but other abductions there had been resolved following negotiations, sometimes with the payment of ransoms. And there was little publicity about the case – details were not made public while attempts were being made to free her.

International aid workers in Afghanistan had been increasingly concerned about their safety and the murders of a group of doctors in the north of the country, including the British doctor Karen Woo two months ago, have added to the sense of foreboding. However, the fact that Ms Norgrove had not been immediately executed was seen as a source of hope that she would, at some stage, be freed. Well versed in Afghan culture, and a fluent speaker of Dari who was also learning Pashto, she was regarded by colleagues as more capable of surviving than most.

That is how matters remained until the news, at the weekend, that Ms Norgrove was killed during an attempt to rescue her by American special forces, supposedly blown up by one of her captors wearing a suicide vest.

US and British authorities stated that they had no choice but to mount the military operation as the hostage was about to be taken across the border to be delivered to al-Qa'ida in Pakistan. But that account disintegrated yesterday with David Cameron having to announce that Ms Norgrove may have been killed by US troops throwing a grenade.Ms Norgrove, who worked for an American development agency, was travelling with Afghan companions in Kunar to visit an irrigation project on 26 September when they were stopped by armed men in the uniform of the Afghan army and taken away. Her bodyguards chased after the men and there was a brief fire fight, but they failed to secure her release.

US forces in Kunar carried out a series of operations to find her and to block off possible escape routes for the kidnap gang. There were leaflet drops from the air and offers of rewards to villagers in return for information about her whereabouts.

There are directly contradictory accounts of what, in the meantime, was going on behind the scenes. The Foreign Secretary William Hague said yesterday that "from the start" the British government was gravely concerned that Ms Norgrove had been taken by a vicious Salafist group who would pass her on up the terrorist chain of command. But Afghan officials claimed that they were in the process of obtaining her release through a group of local elders when the raid took place. Others maintained that the abductors were not hardcore Taliban but a criminal gang which was seeking a substantial ransom and had let this be known to British diplomats.

Ms Norgrove was being moved about, with the US forces attempting to keep track of her through electronic surveillance as well as material they were receiving from the Afghan intelligence service. General David Petraeus, the American commander of Nato forces, advised the British government that an operation needed to be launched to free the hostage. Cobra, the Cabinet's crisis management committee, gave the go-ahead. Within hours of the failed mission, officials were saying that Ms Norgrove had died in a suicide blast. But then the commander of the Special Operations troop who had carried out the raid saw something in the video footage taken by helmet cameras of soldiers which made him immediately alert Gen Petraeus.

Captain Gary Kirchner, at Nato headquarters, said: "He discovered what looked to him like someone throwing a hand grenade into the area where Ms Norgrove was being held. The bottom line is that when the commander saw that he knew that there were some discrepancies and immediately wanted to make sure that we did the right thing."

Currently the plan is for the US military's Central Command in Tampa, Florida, to hold the investigation.

Ms Norgrove's family want a full explanation of what went wrong and may well want an independent element to the investigation. David Cameron too, publicly placed in a highly embarrassing position through false information, will want to be reassured that the next version he is given is an accurate one.

The other rescues that went wrong

* A dawn raid by British special forces to rescue The New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell, 46, and his Afghan colleague Sultan Munadi, 34, ended with the death of Mr Munadi and Cpl John Harrison, 29. Mr Farrell and Mr Munadi were kidnapped by the Taliban in September last year after travelling to Kunduz to investigate the site of an air strike on two hijacked fuel tankers.

* A chaotic police rescue, which ended in the deaths of eight people taken hostage on a bus in the Philippines, was watched live by millions on television in August. Seven more people were injured. The former police inspector Rolando Mendoza, 55, who was dismissed on robbery and extortion charges, had seized the bus in Manila.

* Florent Lemacon was killed in a shoot-out between French special forces and Somali pirates in April last year after a controversial attempt to recover his hijacked yacht in the Indian Ocean.

* A Russian operation to rescue 800 people taken hostage in a Moscow theatre by Chechen rebels in October 2002 led to the death of 117 as well as around 50 rebels. Most of those killed were said to have been poisoned by gas pumped into the building by Russian troops.

* Attempts by UK and US special forces to rescue IT consultant Peter Moore and his four security guards failed to reach them in time. The five men were kidnapped in Baghdad in May 2007. Mr Moore, 36, was eventually released but three of the guards – Jason Swindlehurst, 38, Jason Creswell, 39, and Alec MacLachlan, 30 – were shot dead. It is believed the fourth, Alan McMenemy, 34, met the same fate.

Timeline of events

Linda Norgrove abducted after an ambush in Kunar province two weeks ago.

She is taken towards the Pakistani border, her movement and those of her abductors tracked electronically.

Cobra, the government's crisis management committee, meets in London. From Kabul, General David Petraeus, the US commander of Nato forces, advises that a rescue attempt must be carried out because of the danger of Ms Norgrove being spirited across the border into Pakistan.

A team of US special forces, on foot and helicopters, storm a compound surrounded by high walls, 7,000 feet up a hillside in the village of Dineshgal in Kunar. There is a prolonged firefight during which grenades are thrown by US forces. Seven insurgents are killed, Ms Norgrove is injured. She is given emergency medical treatment and evacuated by a helicopter, but dies from her injuries.

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