JUBA, Thursday
The leader of South Sudan, Mr Salva Kiir, has warned his armed forces are being re-organised so they are prepared for any return to war with the north.
Mr Kiir, who is vice-president of Sudan, said he would not be the one to take the country back to war.
But if it was imposed on the south, they would be ready, he added.
His sabre-rattling remarks follow this week’s claims the Khartoum Government was supplying arms to ethnic groups in the south to destabilise the region.
A 22-year war between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south ended in 2005, after 1.5 million people died.
Allegations fly
Under the 2005 peace deal the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) formed a power-sharing government with President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party in Khartoum.
Relations between the former foes remain tense, with a referendum on whether the south should secede due in 2011.
Earlier this week, the SPLM secretary- general Pagan Amum accused Khartoum of distributing arms in the south ahead of the plebiscite on formally splitting from the north.
The allegations flew after 27 river barges were looted near the town of Nasir last Sunday by gunmen who wanted to stop food supplies reaching a rival ethnic group.
But the Khartoum Government’s Strategic Planning minister Tajussir Mahjoub said no “sane government” would do that, denying knowledge of the source of weapons.
In 1983 a civil war was reignited in Sudan following President Gaafar Numeiry’s decision to circumvent the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972.
President Numeiry attempted to create a federated Sudan including states in southern Sudan, which violated the Addis Ababa Agreement that had granted the south considerable autonomy.
He appointed a committee to undertake “a substantial review of the Addis Ababa Agreement, especially in the areas of security arrangements, border trade, language, culture and religion”.
Mr Mansour Khalid a former Foreign minister wrote, “Numeiry had never been genuinely committed to the principles of the Addis Ababa Agreement”.
In September 1983, the civil war was reignited when President Numeiry’s culminated the 1977 revisions by imposing new Islamic laws on all of Sudan, including the non-Muslim south.
When asked about revisions, he stated “The Addis Ababa agreement is myself and Joseph Lagu and we want it that way… I am 300 per cent the constitution. I do not know of any plebiscite because I am mandated by the people as the President”.
Political offensive
Southern troops rebelled against the northern political offensive, and launched attacks in June 1983.
In 1995, former US President Jimmy Carter negotiated the longest ceasefire in the history of the war to allow humanitarian aid to enter Southern Sudan which had been inaccessible owing to violence.
This ceasefire, which lasted almost six months, has since been called the “Guinea Worm Ceasefire.”
Since 1983, a combination of civil war and famine has taken the lives of nearly 2 million people in Sudan.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), based in southern Sudan, was formed in May 1983.
The war continued even after Numeiry was ousted and a democratic government was elected with Al Sadig Al Mahdi’s Umma Party having the majority in the parliament.
The leader of the SPLA, Dr John Garang, refused to recognise the government and to negotiate with it as representative of Sudan but agreed to negotiate with government officials as representative of their political parties. (Agencies)
حركة العدل و المساواة السودانية
موقع متخصص بنقل آخر الأخبار و البيانات و القرارات لحركة العدل و المساواة السودانية