South Sudan vows to respect peace accord

JUBA, Tuesday

Leader of the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Salva Kiir Mayardit reiterated on Tuesday that his movement’s commitment to a peace agreement it signed with the central government in 2005. 

But at the same time, Mr Mayardit has called for international help, including an urgent UN Security Council meeting, to save the peace deal that ended Africa’s longest running civil war. 

Mr Mayardit told a press conference in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, that the SPLM “adheres to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and is keen to implement its items,” according to the Khartoum-controlled Suna news agency.

“The SPLM is sticking to the peace and has not intentions to go back to the war square,” Mr Mayardit was quoted as saying to reporters. 

He, meanwhile, called on the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) led by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to put into effect a package of demands which had been raised by the SPLM to el-Bashir last week. 

Mr Mayardit said that the ministers of his movement would not return to the central government in Khartoum before the package of demands are met. 

This was the first time for the SPLM leader to make public remarks since the movement decided on October 11 to withhold the participation of its ministers in the central government and suspend its partnership with the NCP. 

Mr Mayardit returned to Juba from Khartoum on Monday morning, after having his first meeting with the Sudanese president since the eruption of the political crisis last Thursday without tangile results. On the call for international help, Mr Mayardit said: “I am launching a special appeal to countries in the region and to the countries of the world to save the CPA (Comprehensive Peace Accord).”

The SPLM’s withdrawal from the unity cabinet plunged north-south relations into their worst crisis since 2005’s peace deal. But Mayardit said: ‘‘Our movement has fought for freedom and equality. It remains committed to the peace accord and will never return to war.”

He added: “This is my message to the Sudanese people from our group ... I call on Sudanese President (Omar al-) Bashir and his National Congress party to adopt a wise position and apply the (peace) accord.”

SPLM secretary general Pagan Amum called for a speedy UN security council meeting to discuss the stalled implementation of the deal, which took 11 years to hammer out.

“We call on the UN to organise an urgent meeting in the Security Council to review the (accord) and for both parties to report on the implementation,” Amum added at the same conference in southern capital Juba.

The group has complained that hardline elements within President el-Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party are stalling on implementing the CPA. On Sunday, second vice president Ali Osman Taha told reporters that “nothing can justify” the SPLM decision to leave government.

Key gripes include the failure of northern troops to redeploy from the south, equitable sharing of oil wealth from the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei and finalising an eventual north-south border.

While the peace deal called on Khartoum to pull out its soldiers from the south by July 9, the ex-rebels say the north continues to reinforce troop numbers near oil fields in the south.

The most significant portfolio change since the SPLM pulled out was the removal of foreign minister Lam Akol, viewed by the south as too close to the NCP and as a defender of government actions in the troubled western region of Darfur.

In a gesture aimed at wooing the southern partners back, President el-Bashir appointed Deng Alor, a senior SPLM leader, as foreign minister. 

Mr Mayardit is due to meet President el-Bashir Beshir on Wednesday for a second round of talks, nearly a week after their first meeting to end the stand-off ended without an agreement. 

On Sunday, Sudan’s Second vice president accused SPLM of building up their forces and escalating tension, 10 days after they withdrew their ministers from the country’s government sparking a political crisis. Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha urged the SPLM to return to Khartoum and restart work on implementing the peace deal.

Mr Taha urged the SPLM to review its decision to withdraw from government, saying it was in the interest of neither the Sudanese people nor the citizens of southern Sudan.

Meanwhile, a southern army commander said yesterday that the Sudanese army’s presence in oil fields in the country’s southern region was linked to fears of insecurity posed by the Darfur conflict in the west of the country.

“The Sudanese army told us that they cannot move from the oil fields because they are national wealth. They said they won’t be happy if Darfur rebels attack the oil fields,” said Major General Elias Waya, chairman of the technical committee of the north-south Joint Defence Board.

“They said they will only move out after the Darfur threat is over,” he said by telephone from Sudan. Under the CPA, both sides are to contribute an equal number of forces to form the 39,000-strong JIU, which would be deployed in areas where both sides have a common interest to avoid clashes. The civil war erupted in 1983 when southerners took up arms to demand an equal share of national wealth from Khartoum. At least 1.5 million people were killed and four million displaced.