Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Sudan Referendum on the Future of the South May Renew Conflict

Sudan Referendum on the Future of the South May Renew Conflict

UN Security Council calls for deployment of ‘peacekeeping’ troops'

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Since 2003 the civil war concluded between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement based in the southern regions and the central government headquartered in the capital of Khartoum. A relative peace has been maintained over the course of the last seven years in these regions despite the eruption of conflict in the western region of Darfur.

In 2005 a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between the SPLA and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The CPA committed both the SPLA and the central government to hold a referendum in the SPLA-controlled areas on the future of the south: whether it would remain as a semi-autonomous region as called for in the initial agreement or secede from the Sudanese state as a whole.

Internal political problems have plagued this country, Africa’s largest geographic nation-state, since the eve of independence in 1955 when a civil war erupted that lasted through the creation of an independent Sudan in 1956 until 1972. Between 1972-1983 the problems remained dormant only to erupt again after the discovery of large-scale oil reservoirs in 1983.

The referendum on the future of the south is scheduled to take place in January 2011 and political tensions are flaring up once again. These problems have been fomented by external factors involving the imperialist designs on seizing and dominating the oil resources of this African state.

A recent visit by a delegation from the United Nations Security Council resulted in a proposition to deploy a ‘peacekeeping’ force to the border between the northern and southern regions. The Sudan Tribune in an October 8 article pointed out that “President Salva Kiir urged the visiting high level delegation of the UN Security Council to Juba, headed by U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, to consider deploying troops as a buffer zone at the border separating the south from the north.” (Sudan Tribune, October 8)

There have been numerous reports that military forces from the SPLM and the central government have been amassing troops on both sides of the border between the north and the south. Approximately 10,000 United Nations troops are already present in the south but they are dispersed across the area which is equal to the size of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

Although the ruling National Congress Party has expressed reservations about the political situation that is developing in the south and its potential impact on the January 2011 referendum, Kiir warned that the south may conduct its own vote if Khartoum does not move ahead with the agreed upon plans stemming from the CPA.

During the Security Council delegation’s visit, British United Nations Ambassador Mark Lyall stated that “Kiir set out quite a powerful case for why the referendum had to go ahead on time and the fact that he felt the referendum would end up with a vote for separation. He was not going to declare UDI (a unilateral declaration of independence).” (Reuters, October 8)

Lyall continued by pointing out that “if there is a delay, a politically induced delay by the NCP for the referendum, then it might be necessary for the south to hold its own referendum.” Kiir in the last few weeks has stepped-up separatist rhetoric indicating that he personally prefers secession than unity, which the NCP says is a violation of the CPA.

Kiir, who is also First Vice President of Sudan, has been neglecting a central aspect of the CPA which is to make unity between the north and south as an attractive and viable option for the people under the control of the SPLM. A senior NCP official Rabie Abdulatti publicly disagreed with Kiir and said that his political position in favor of secession was unacceptable.

“Nobody would recognize it. This is against the CPA. Everything about its implementation should be agreed upon by the two partners,” said Abdulatti (Reuters, October 8)

Central Government, Libya Rejects Partition

Government officials in Sudan have rejected the proposal for the deployment of additional troops on the border between the north and south of the country saying that it represents a violation of the CPA. Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti during a meeting with the UN Security Council delegation expressed the central government’s opposition to the plans to dispatch additional ‘peacekeeping’ troops.

On October 10, Ibrahim Ghandoor, who is the political secretary of the ruling National Congress Party, reiterated the same position that the organization would reject any new measures not already included in the CPA. “Sudan is still one country and it is very strange that a part of the state asks for international troops without the consent or agreement of the federal government,” Ghandoor said.

In addition to the disagreement over the deployment of additional UN troops, the NCP wants a demarcation of the north and the south completed prior to the referendum in January. In contrast, the SPLM says the demarcation of the territories must occur after the vote on the future of the southern regions.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has expressed his concern over recent statements made by SPLM leaders on the question of the CPA and the scheduled referendum. The president, who was attending an African-Arab summit in Libya, said that he was committed to holding the referendum on time but that differences over the demarcation of the borders, the national debt, the utilization of the Nile water resources and the ownership of the nation’s oil resources would have to be agreed upon first.

In a speech by al-Bashir at the summit in Libya, he was reported to have said that “the failure in the settlement of these issues before the referendum would make the process as a project for a new dispute between the north and the south that can be much more serious than the dispute which was existing before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.” (Sudanese News Agency, October 10)

The host of the African-Arab summit, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, weighed in on the current debate within Sudan saying that partition of the country would be disastrous. “What is happening in Sudan could become a contagious disease that affects the whole of Africa.” (AFP, October 10)

Kadhafi continued by pointing out that “We must recognize that this event is dangerous. The partition of Sudan is likely to change the map of the country. But other African countries will change too.”

Tensions inside the country were manifested in Khartoum on October 10 when a unity rally was disturbed by a group of pro-southern independence protesters who held placards calling for secession. The rally which called for maintaining a unitary state was sponsored by the National Organization for the Support of Unity and Referendum, which is supported by the ruling NCP.

The African-Arab summit being held in Libya is designed to establish a new Afro-Arab Partnership Strategy that would replace the Program of Action on Afro-Arab Cooperation adopted by the first of such summits which was held in Cairo, Egypt in March 1977.

African Union Commission Chairperson Jean Ping said of the summit that “We in the African Union Commission believe that Africa-Arab cooperation has neither a substitute nor an alternative. It is a unique type of cooperation whose level of interdependence is continuously on the increase.” (Sudan Tribune, October 10)

Ping continued by saying that “The continued conflict situations in some of our common Member States, such as Somalia and Sudan have made it clear that both sides must join efforts to ensure that sustainable and lasting solutions are found to these conflicts.”

The AU Commission Chairperson went on to note the vast reservoir of mineral resources on the continent and how the lack of industrial development is hampering the economic viability of Africa. “Africa supplies up to 31 percent of the world’s demand for bauxite, cobalt, gold, manganese, phosphate and uranium,” Ping said.

“Additionally, Africa supplies 57 percent of the world’s need for chromium and diamonds, and the hydrocarbon (oil) deposits are immense. Ironically, due to the low level of industrial development, the continent consumes very little of these resources. Most are exported as raw materials without any local value addition and beneficiation,” Ping said.

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