Tribal violence in South Sudan is more complex - UN Pronk

Click here for a must-read near verbatim transcript of a press conference by UN SRSG Jan Pronk held on 26 July 2006 at UNMIS Press Briefing Room, Ramsis Building. - via Sudan Tribune 28 July 2006. Excerpt from Q&A:

Q Two questions: one: you mentioned that oil companies in the south have their own militias. Could you elaborate on that? Who are these oil companies; are they foreign or national and is anyone negotiating with them on their militias?

Secondly; how seriously do you take the threats from AlQaeda that they will move in Sudan if the UN deployed in Darfur and what has the Government said to you about these threats?

SRSG Pronk: No details about the oil companies and those militias. I see it as a problem and today I am not going further than that. I am highlighting the complexity of the violence in the South. Many people say it is more than tribal, it is economic. Economic not only in the traditional sense of the word - that is the fight for water and all that - but also fight for other resources; fight for land which has been occupied for security reasons for instance by oil companies. People returning to the places where they came from find that the land has been occupied by the oil companies sometimes a decade or fifteen years after they had left and they are being denied access to their title by people in uniform. It is a problem and it will have to be discussed.

I don't know about new [AlQaeda] threats ...

[Note to self to take time out to digest this report. Light blogging over next few days]