Aid agencies issue Sudan war alert

Africa’s longest-running civil war could be reignited in Sudan if a referendum on independence for the southern region due within 12 months does not take place, a coalition of aid agencies has warned.
“It’s the referendum or nothing,” said Richard Poole, Sudan country director for the International Rescue Committee, one of the 10 agencies in the coalition. The vote was a key element of a fragile peace deal between southern rebels and the Khartoum regime, which ended decades of civil war in 2005.
“If it goes ahead, there’s a 50 per cent chance of peace,” he said. “If it does not take place, there will be no peace. There will be a return to civil war. There will be a bloodbath on the scale that we’ve had in the past, perhaps even worse.”
Tensions between the north and the oil-rich south have replaced the region of Darfur as the primary concern of the international community as Sudan enters a year of potential flashpoints. National elections are due in April and the referendum on southern independence, set for January next year, could herald the country’s dissolution.
The aid agencies called on the US, Britain and other countries involved in the peace deal to press the north and south to resolve outstanding disagreements. They urged UN peacekeepers to do more to protect civilians from localised violence.
Pagan Amum, secretary-general of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), a former rebel group that rules the semi-autonomous south, told the Financial Times: “The referendum must take place on January 9 2011 as agreed.
“I don’t see a return to war if the will of the people is accepted. If anyone wants to refuse the will of the people, that is what will lead to conflict.”
Most aid agencies and diplomats predict that the south would choose independence if the referendum took place. A law passed by parliament last month would allow the south to gain independence if a simple majority of voters chose this option, provided that turnout reached 60 per cent.
But Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, who faces charges at the International Criminal Court over Darfur, has a record of breaking promises.
The SPLM, meanwhile, has been stepping up preparations for war. Despite the benefit of oil revenues and funding from outside donors, it has made little progress since 2005 in turning the south, one of the poorest and least developed parts of Africa, into a viable nation-state.
Analysts say the Khartoum regime could resist secession because the south holds the majority of Sudan’s oil, which is currently piped to the north and refined there.
The two sides have not drawn up a plan on how to manage the oil industry – in which China has a large stake – if the south seceded.
Violence between ethnic groups in the south is on the rise, with 2,500 people killed last year and 350,000 forced from their homes, according to the aid agencies.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.