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Sudan: Govt Claims Deal is 90 Percent Complete - SPLM Disagrees
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The East African (Nairobi)
24 March 2008
Posted to the web 24 March 2008
Fred Oluoch
Nairobi
The full implementation of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which is at the centre of the current altercation between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, appears uncertain.
Dr Rabbi Abdul-Atti, an adviser to the Sudanese information minister who was in Nairobi recently, said that 90 per cent of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in Nairobi in January 2005, has already been implemented.
But the spokesman for the government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) in Nairobi, says that such a rosy picture "is totally misleading."
John Andruga Duku, the GOSS head of mission in Nairobi, was emphatic that things are not going smoothly because the SPLM is yet to be fully involved in the oil contracts that were entered into before the CPA.
The withdrawal of the Sudanese armed forces from Southern Sudan is away behind schedule, while not a paragraph of the entire Abyei protocol has been implemented.
Last year, Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir briefly withdrew the southerners from the government of national unity over the issue of Abyei, wealth-sharing, the border between North and South and the issue of whether the question of religion and ethnicity should be included in the forthcoming census.
But in his briefing visit in Nairobi, Dr Abdul-Atti said the government was in the final process of implementing the CPA with the formation of the Abyei government, expected to be completed early next week.
"We can say the problem of the CPA is being addressed. The government of Abyei will be formed after the government of national unity agrees on the formula," he said.
Dr Abdul-Atti dismissed claims that the government was dragging its feet on implementing the landmark North-South peace deal, reiterating that almost 90 per cent of the entire pact has been implemented with only a few parts, such as ensuring national unity, still outstanding.
He said Khartoum has made major progress in the security, energy, power sharing and security pacts, including other provisions contained in the CPA, with the pullout of the national army from Southern Sudan nearly completed.
He said resolving the problem of Abyei will mean that the CPA will have been implemented by more than 98 per cent.
Abyei has been the most contentious issue between the SPLM and the National Congress Party since President Omar el-Bashir rejected the report of independent international experts who were given the job of marking Abyei's borders by the January 2005 peace deal. The oil-rich Abyei contains 60 per cent of all the oil fields in the south.
Dr Abdul-Atti said that despite criticism from the international community, a lot of progress has been achieved since the signing of the deal to end the civil war in Africa's largest country two years ago.
He said although a few issues regarding social affairs, peaceful coexistence and promotion of the peace agreement among the Sudanese people remained to be resolved, the process was going well.
But Mr Duku said the SPLM national council is currently evaluating the CPA and its implementation.
"We are very sceptical about the so-called Sudan boundaries, because the SPLM had accepted them but National Congress Party rejected them.
He noted that the most important protocol - wealth-sharing - was still untouched because SPLM was supposed to have been informed what the output of oil per day was, what quantity is sold per day, where it is being sold, and the price.
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"Till today there has been no SPLM representation in that process. Our partner has not allowed us to be part of the process, which in itself is a violation of CPA.
Secondly, we are supposed to the know the contracts that the National Congress Party signed with oil companies before the CPA," he said.
In terms of security, we have a problem because the Sudan armed forces have not withdrawn from Southern Sudan even though the deadline was July 9, 2007. That is one of the violations that forced the SPLM to suspend its participation in the government of national unity last year," he added.
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