Over 200 dead in south Sudan "massacre"
South Sudan will be the name of the world's newest nation when it achieves international recognition in July, a top official of its ruling party said on Tuesday.
"We as SPLM leadership have taken a position that the new state... shall be called south Sudan," said Pagan Amum, secretary general of the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.
"This is because the people who have exercised their right of self-determination were the people of south Sudan," Amum told reporters in the southern capital, speaking during a break in talks between the party’s top leaders, where the choice was made.
We will be asking the government of south Sudan, and the parliament, and our caucus of SPLM, to vote for the name of a country that will be called south Sudan 
The decision must still be voted on by the southern parliament, but with the SPLM holding the vast majority of seats it seems likely the choice of name will stick.
"We will be asking the government of south Sudan, and the parliament, and our caucus of SPLM, to vote for the name of a country that will be called south Sudan," Amum said.
In a landmark independence vote last month, almost 99 percent of southerners voted to secede and split Africa's largest country in two.
Others suggestions for the country's name had ranged from Nile Republic to Cush, a Biblical reference, but south Sudan always appeared the popular choice.
Amum said the south faced many challenges and he voiced "deep pain and sorrow" that clashes last week between rebels and the southern army had killed 197. Another southern official later said the number of dead had exceeded 200.
"We are a baby nation that has just been born -- and like a human baby, we are fragile but have the potential to become great," Amum said.
He said negotiations were under way with the north's ruling National Congress Party on outstanding issues that have to be resolved before partition.
He acknowledged that the border between north and south remains in dispute along one fifth of its length.
He said the current 50-50 sharing of revenues from southern oil exports would not continue.
"There will be no continuation of sharing wealth," Amum said, adding that the south would pay transit fees for the use of a northern pipeline to get its oil to market.
He said north and south would have separate currencies after partition in place of the existing Sudanese pound.
"The current pound will be replaced by new currencies. The government of southern Sudan has plans to introduce a new currency, and it will be called the pound."
Amum said the SPLM would split into separate northern and southern sections.
Malik Agar, SPLM stalwart and governor of Blue Nile state in the north, will be the interim chairman of the party's northern branch, Amum said.
The party's candidate for a nationwide presidential election last April, northerner Yassir Arman, will be acting secretary general until party elections can be held, he added.
211 killed
It was a massacre of our people and it is really very painful Meanwhile a southern minister said attacks by a renegade militia in south Sudan's Jonglei oil state killed at least 211 people, doubling earlier estimates of the death count.
Southern government minister James Kok, who had just returned from Jonglei, told Reuters 211 people died in the fighting or later in hospital and at least 109 were wounded. His figures did not include casualties among the militias.
The dead included people who had just returned to the south to take part in the referendum, said the southern army spokesman Philip Aguer.
"Some were trying to flee the fighting and drowned in the river. Some were returnees from the north who were living under trees and were caught unawares," he added.
The violence has reignited concerns for the security of the underdeveloped region.
South Sudan's army said forces loyal to George Athor, a former army officer who launched a revolt after losing in last year's elections, carried out attacks in Jonglei last week.
Amum epeated accusations that the north was trying to destabilize the south by arming militias -- but stopped short of directly implicating northern government figures.
"It was a massacre of our people and it is really very painful," he told reporters. "We are a society that is traumatized ... Guns are in a lot of hands."
"Today armed groups are being financed, being armed, being sent into southern Sudan from the north. You know that George Athor who just caused the massacre in Fangak, his guns are coming from Khartoum," said Amum, secretary general of the dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Rabie Abdelati, a senior member of the north's dominant National Congress Party (NCP), denied the accusation.
"Athor's is a southern group and there is no connection between the NCP and Athor," he told Reuters.
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