Sudan’s army clashed with Darfur rebels for the second time in a week on Tuesday, peacekeepers said, and insurgents said they shot down a helicopter gunship, killing at least three people.
Fighting has disrupted the remote western territory for almost eight years, in the face of a string of failed ceasefires and internationally backed negotiations.
A spokesman from the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) loyal to Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur said its forces and allied insurgents clashed with the army near the North Darfur town of Thabit on Tuesday morning.
A statement from SLA official Adam Salih Abakr said the rebels, fighting alongside another SLA faction and the insurgent Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), killed a large number of government soldiers.
The credible and relatively peaceful referendum that took place last week in South Sudan would seem to vindicate the current US administration’s Sudan policy of the past two years. Yet members of President George W. Bush’s Africa team, who have steadily criticized President Barack Obama on Sudan since 2009, continue to raise concerns about the White House’s approach. At stake in this debate are the nature of US policy in Africa and the apportioning of credit in what is arguably the greatest American diplomatic triumph since the 1990s.
Bush and other architects of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 (CPA), which ended decades of civil war in Sudan and laid plans for the referendum, initially envisioned a smooth transition to Obama with regard to Sudan. Immediately after Obama took office, one Bush appointee, former US Senator and Special Envoy to Sudan John Danforth wrote encouragingly, “The Obama administration can help to finish the work we started. The US can help save the peace agreement.”
But criticism of Obama on Sudan soon followed, portraying the President as disengaged and his appointees as disunited in the face of threats of renewed civil war in Sudan. Andrew Natsios, one of Bush’s Special Envoys to Sudan, wrote in 2009, “Disputes within the Obama administration are inhibiting US efforts to stop Sudan’s slide toward civil war at a time when unified American leadership is essential.” Shortly before Sudan’s April 2010 presidential elections, Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Bush, told CNN that the Obama administration had “wasted almost a whole year on a policy review, and yet they are still talking with many different voices.” Richard Williamson, Bush’s final Special Envoy to Sudan, denounced Obama’s Special Envoy Scott Gration for not doing enough to enforce a court ruling concerning a north-south border dispute in the oil-rich Abyei region. Frazer and Williamson suggested that Gration’s friendliness and Obama’s disengagement were allowing Khartoum to act with impunity.
They call him “Commander Dan.” He arrived 24 years ago, and they say here now that he knows South Sudan better than any other “Kawaja” – white man – around.
And yet even he got it wrong.
“I’m supposed to be a Sudan expert!” says Dan Eiffe in an Irish lilt, sitting along the banks of the Nile. “And yet I didn’t believe this day would come. I really was sure there would be another war before they let us free.”
After 22 years of civil war – Africa’s longest conflict – in which 2 million people were killed and a further 4 million were displaced, South Sudan is now on the brink of independence.
The South Sudan Referendum Commission’s preliminary results show that the predominantly Christian and African south has chosen, overwhelmingly, to split away from the mainly Arab and Muslim north.
In several southern counties, a full 99.9 percent of voters cast their ballots for independence, according to Timon Wani, a commission official. “Stay calm,” he told the crowds gathered under the afternoon sun in Juba, the town poised to become the South Sudan capital.
“Don’t celebrate yet… do not beat the drums,” he continued, his eye on a group of herders who were so busy waving arms in the air to signal victory that they were losing control of their goats. “Our divorce must be as smooth as the voting process itself… We must be restrained a little longer.”
Deputy President of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) Dr. Riak Machar has relayed a message to the North a head of the referendum outcome official announcement.
The message says: “Common Peace and security with independence better than unity with war.”
“If we establish two independent states, which are politically, economically and socially cooperative, our two peoples will benefit and enjoy welfare after the sufferings of war that prolonged for decades,” said Machar, adding,” We are now working for political, economic and social communications.”
The priorities of the coming government of the South are: consolidation of a sustainable peace with the North, realization of security in the South, delivery of basic services to the people there, such as potable water, construction of roads, hospitals and schools, along with promotion of overall economic and social development, GoSS deputy president said.
Sudan is protecting two men wanted for war crimes in Darfur and is “not serious” about pursuing members of allied militias for committing atrocities, the country’s own state minister for justice said on Wednesday.
Minister Bol Lul Wang is a member of south Sudan’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), former southern rebels who joined a coalition government with the north after a 2005 peace deal ended decades of civil war.
The statements from inside the coalition will test already strained north-south relations as south Sudan prepares to secede, after southerners overwhelmingly chose to declare independence in a referendum this month.
Results of a recent referendum vote on independence in Sudan are set to be announced next month.
Preliminary numbers show more than 98 percent of voters in southern Sudan want independence from the north.
But the country’s Arab Muslim government, which is based in the north, and its Iranian ally may not let the south break away without a fight.
For more than 20 years, the Sudanese government waged a ruthless jihad against the south, leading to some 2 million deaths — many of them Christians.
Now that the south is set to become an independent nation, Sudanese Dictator Omar al-Bashir is once again rallying his troops.
“The Islamist Salafist and jihadi forces who rule the elites of Khartoum are going to try to do everything they can,” explained Walid Phares, Middle East expert and author of ‘The Coming Revolution.’ “One — to undermine the viability of the young southern Sudan. Two — to make sure that no other spots in Sudan which are against the government, against the jihadi regime, will erupt as well.”
Stakes for Iran
Phares added that one of the most important of the potential hot spots lies in eastern Sudan.
“There, you have a population known as the Beja population. And they too are claiming that Khartoum is persecuting them, and they may be calling for self-determination,” he said.
The Beja live along the Red Sea in eastern Sudan — a vital waterway not only for Bashir’s government, but for Iran as well.
“The Iranian regime is now putting tremendous pressure on Khartoum and Bashir to make sure that this region will remain ‘under jihadi control,'” Phares explained. “Why? Because the iranians now are moving into the Red Sea.”
Phares said Iran wants a Red Sea port in Sudan where it can base ships and other assets to turn up the heat not only on Israel, but also its Arab rivals in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Bashir’s regime has lost the south, where much of Sudan’s oil is based.
The Sudanese leader is also under indictment by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide.
That and the potential to one day be under an Iranian nuclear umbrella makes a closer alliance with Iran even more attractive to Khartoum.
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Years before Sudan’s south began casting votes for succession, the woes of Africa’s largest country were defined by the ethnic bloodshed in the western Darfur region.
Now, international mediators and rights groups are calling for stronger efforts to settle the eight-year Darfur conflict, fearing that the expected breakaway of the south may push Khartoum’s leaders to clamp down harder on dissent and place stricter limits on an international role in Darfur and other areas that remain under its direct control.
Human Rights Watch and other groups say violence was already increasing in the vast arid region in the lead-up to the southern referendum held earlier this month. At the same time, government restrictions are making it harder to obtain information on conditions there, they say.
On Friday there were reports of new clashes between the military and rebels in Darfur, leaving 21 dead.
As many as 300,000 people have died as a result of the fighting in Darfur — a vast region outside the secession-seeking south — between forces from the Arab-led central government and rebel factions whose demands include greater control over natural resources. At least 2.7 million people have been displaced inside Darfur and in neighboring Chad.
The roots of the breakaway movement in the south are similar, but it’s also fed by a religious split between the Muslim-dominated north and the heavily Christian south.
The referendum for southern independence was part of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war. Preliminary results show overwhelming support to create the world’s newest nation.
American officials visited Darfur during the referendum to send a message that the region will not be forgotten.
U.S. Senator John Kerry reminded Sudanese officials that prospects for improved relations with the U.S. hinge on progress in Darfur. He also urged greater international efforts to reach a resolution in Darfur after more than two years of talks in Qatar have failed to reach a comprehensive peace deal.
Russia is willing to recognize an independent state in Southern Sudan if the results of 9 January referendum are accepted by the two governments north and south, said the special envoy of the President Dmitry Medvedev to Sudan.
On Wednesday, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) declared recognizing the results of the Southern Sudan referendum on independence. Southerners according to the preliminary results overwhelmingly voted in favor of the independence of the region.
International observers from different countries and organizations also said the vote was fair and credible. They also hailed the security conditions and the good organization despite logistical and material difficulties.
“If a new independent state appears on Africa’s map as a result of the referendum and this is not accompanied with conflicts, this outcome can be described as a most favourable one,” said Mikhail Margelov special Russian envoy to Sudan.
“We act as an honest partner: we have no burden of the colonial past either in Sudan or in neighbouring African countries, nor have we investments running into billions or the mentality of an international policeman. Russia in this case can only show its goodwill,” he stressed.
Margelov said the northern and southern Sudan governments expressed readiness to reach agreement on the pending issues to prevent another civil war.
“The political forces of Sudan were able now to reach agreement: they have common interests, and, one would like to hope, not only economic.”
Last December during a visit to Khartoum, the Russian envoy met with the Sudanese First Vice President and head of southern Sudan government to discuss the future relations between Russia and South Sudan.
“Russia is interested in its economic presence in Sudan, whether in a unified one, or with the South separated from it,” he said.
“From the business point of view, (Sudan) offers a multitude of perspective trends – oil, pipelines, energy, water resources and railway transport,” he stressed.
Juba — Riek Machar, the Vice President of the emerging new independent state of South Sudan said the region has already prepared a “roadmap” for post-referendum governance, dismissing fears of political instability after independence.
Nearly four million South Sudanese casted their votes last week in a referendum to decide if they want to break away from the rest of Sudan and form their own independent country or remain united after 55 years of liberation struggle, that started on 18 August 1955 in the town of Torit town.
Preliminary results have so far indicated the overwhelming vote in favour of secession, which will lead to declaration of independence in July after confirmation by the referendum commission of final results in February.
However, general fears are being expressed about what the political situation of the new state will be after it gains independence. Some observers call it a failed state in waiting that will be marred by political instability and ethnic tensions. Currently, the SPLM is the ruling party and there are dozens of other political parties in active opposition.
In a meeting in Juba with a UN delegation led by the chairman of the UN Panel to Sudan and former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, Machar explaiend that the South would emerge politically stable. He said the region has already prepared and was committed to a post-referendum governance roadmap.
Machar equally assured the top Chinese diplomat in Juba, Zhu Zhibin, on 20 January of the future stability of the South. Last week the leader of the United Democratic Front (UDF), Peter A. Sule, in his BBC interview revealed what he called ethnic domination in the present government and marginalization of some other political parties.
The Vice President said that the region would immediately begin to implement the resolutions and recommendations of the roadmap after declaration of the final results of the referendum, in order to avoid such political tensions. In in October 2010, all the South Sudanese political parties held a conference in the regional capital, Juba, UDF included, and agreed on the roadmap to guide the future governance of the region after the referendum.
Posted inSouthern Sudan, SPLM|TaggedRiek Machar|Comments Off on “South Has Political ‘Roadmap’ for Post-Referendum Governance” – Vice President Riek Machar
