Sudan: Crisis on Two Fronts as Southern Party Quits Govt

From AFP

Sudan faced a crisis on two fronts Thursday after the main party in the south withdrew from government because of Khartoum's failure to share power as hopes also faded for peace in Darfur.

Former southern rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement suspended their participation in the national government as fighting escalated in the western region of Darfur where rebels have taken up arms complaining of abuse and marginalisation by Khartoum.

Darfur peace talks due in Libya later this month have been put at risk by reports that Khartoum forces and their allied Janjaweed militias have intensified attacks on the rebels, including the only faction to have signed a peace deal.

In Khartoum, a senior SPLM official said the decision to withdraw from government was taken at a meeting in the southern capital of Juba presided over by party leader Salva Kiir.

"Our participation in the government is frozen until we can find a solution to our differences" with the north, he added.

The SPLM and its armed wing signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with Khartoum in 2005, ending 21 years of war between the Muslim north and Christian and animist south that killed at least two million people and displaced millions more.

At least 200,000 people have been killed in four years of fighting in Darfur.

While southern former rebel leader Salva Kiir currently holds the post of first vice president in the national government, further implementation of the agreement has been dogged by problems and mutual accusations of stalling.

The SPLM currently has 18 ministers and deputy ministers in the central government, as well as holding its own parliament sessions in Juba, the capital of the semi-autonomous south.

The SPLM official said key problems revolved around the withdrawal of northern troops from the south, the fate of the disputed oil-rich region of Abiye and "the evolution of democracy in Sudan."

He said that the SPLM would return to the government once the differences were resolved.

In Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army faction of Minni Minawi, the only rebel group to have signed a 2006 peace deal, threatened to take up arms again after it said more than 50 people were killed in a government-backed attack.

"From now on, our movement will not stand by and do nothing in the face of such attacks," Arku Suleiman Dhahia, commander in chief of the SLA said on Tuesday.

"If this happens again, we go back to square one which means war and it will be worse than the one before (the peace deal was signed) 2006," he told journalists in Khartoum.

The UN reported clashes between government of Sudan forces and Minawi troops but the circumstances of the fighting remain unclear.

As a result of the attack, Minawi, now a special advisor to President Omar al-Beshir, cut short a visit to Darfur in which he had been trying to persuade other rebel factions to join this month's peace conference in Libya.

US envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios earlier this month voiced "deep concern" at the "poisonous" atmosphere between the north and south peace partners since the CPA was signed.

"Tensions are rising. This is dangerous ... The current political atmosphere between (north and south) is poisonous," Natsios said on October 6.

He said the risk of clashes between both sides was high, warning of the danger of militarisation on the border.

In August, south Sudan's information minister Samson Kwaje warned that the world's focus on ending the conflict in Darfur could hamper the implementation of the north-south accord