Sudan leaders agree “full demilitarisation” of Abyei

Leaders from north and south Sudan signed an agreement pledging to end fighting in the disputed border region of Abyei, on Monday 20th June.

The agreement was reached after days of mediation by former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, in the Ethopian capital of Addis Ababa.

The deal requires both northern and southern troops to leave Abyei, to be replaced by Ethiopian peacekeepers, in an agreement that Mbeki has said will provide for the "full demilitarisation" of Abyei.

Both north and South Sudan claim the oil-rich border region of Abyei, and northern forces seized the town last month, causing over one hundred thousand people to flee, mostly to the south.

Violence in the northern border state of Southern Kordofan has also led to 60,000 people being displaced.

Some 4,000 Ethiopian troops are expected to be brought in after the Sudanese army has left, although the UN will determine the exact troop numbers and their mandate.

With South Sudan planning to declare independence on 9th July, 2011, Mbeki said in his announcement of the deal, it was crucial that the peacekeepers were brought in as soon as possible. He urged the UN Security Council to authorise their deployment without delay.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the agreement and pledged “the full support of the United Nations to the parties in facilitating its implementation.”

Ban also urged the two sides to resolve "all outstanding issues related to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and post-secession arrangement, and to reach an immediate cessation of hostilities in Southern Kordofan State and provide their full co-operation to humanitarian agencies in meeting the needs of the affected population."

The violence, which started on 5th June, continues in Southern Kordofan state. US permanent representative to the UN, Susan Rice, spoke of reports that alleged that forces aligned with the north had “searched for southern forces and sympathisers, whom they arrested and allegedly executed.”

Mbeki said political leaders from Southern Kordofan would be arriving shortly in Addis Ababa to hold talks on ending the conflict.

Violence broke out after residents in the state's Nuba Mountains, many of whom fought for the south during the country's decades-long civil war, were ordered to disarm by the new Khartoum-allied governor, Ahmed Haroun, who has been indicted for war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court.

South Sudan voted overwhelming in favour of independence in a January referendum, prescribed by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which brought civil war to an end.

Abyei was meant to have its own referendum on whether it would stay in the north or join the south, however the vote was postponed indefinitely over disagreements on voter eligibility, to do with the nomadic, Khartoum-backed Misseriya Arab tribespeople.

Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states are clearly in the north, however many of their residents fought with the south during the civil war, and tension has been high as the South prepares to separate.

Sources: BBC News, the Guardian, RTT News

For more news and expert analysis about the Sahara region, please see Sahara Focus.

North and South Sudan agree to co-operate on debt and border issues

South Sudan will help the north get relief on its $38 billion in debt, as long as the north 'cooperates' on border and other issues in the countdown to the south's independence in July, a southern official said.

At the end of a week-long meeting with northern leaders, SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum, said "We are ready to join the north in joint efforts for debt relief,” according to Reuters.

"But our participation is conditional to the cooperation of the north in all the other areas including Abyei, as well as also assuming the redemption of the Sudanese currency as we change the currency."

Representatives from both sides met in the Ethiopian resort town of Debre Zeit, for meetings mediated by the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan (AUHIP), led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki. While little concrete was accomplished, both sides agreed to send a joint team to the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to campaign for debt relief.

The question of what will happen to Sudan's debt when it becomes two countries has been one of the most pressing issues in the run-up to the south's independence. The SPLM has said previously that they will not share the country's foreign debt, saying that it was money borrowed to finance the northern army's fight against the south in the civil war.

Reuters reports that a note by the IMF said much of Sudan's debt dates back to the 1960s, when it borrowed on poor terms to finance large industrial projects. Nearly 90 per cent of Sudan's debt is owed to bilateral and commercial creditors, with their own requirements, and would take at least three years to clear, according to a paper by the Center for Global Development.

At the week-long meetings, the two sides also discussed the future of the oil sector and the two state-owned oil companies, Sudapet and Nilepet. Under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which brought the two-decade long civil war to an end, the north and the south share the revenues from southern oil 50-50. Most of Sudan's oil reserves are in the South, but the pipelines and refineries are in the north. Regardless of what new deal is negotiated, the north is almost certain to get fewer revenues from the south after its independence.

The two sides discussed a range of other issues, including border demarcation, ownership over the border region of Abyei, currency issues, and Nile water ownership.

Talks will resume in Sudan before the two sides return to Ethiopia on 5th April, for another round of negotiations, according to the AUHIP.

Meanwhile, violence has continued to take place in Abyei, according to the Satellite Sentinel Project, a group backed by George Clooney and Google. The group uses satellite images to track violence along the border area in the wake of January's independence referendum. New images show that some 300 buildings were burned in a village near Abyei on Saturday 5th March.

Abyei has seen a wave of attacks in recent days that have killed more than 100 people and displaces tens of thousands.

"Village burning has caused tens of thousands to be displaced, unknown numbers of civilian casualties, and the deliberate destruction of at least three communities," said Clooney.

The latest images show an attack on Saturday, 5th March, on the village of Tajalei. Charles Abyei, speaker of the parliament in the Abyei area said that it was the third village to be attacked. After the first two villages were attacked, rumours spread that Tajalei would be next, so civilians fled.

"The place was empty and these elements of the Popular Defence Forces came and found nobody except one man who was mentally sick," said Abyei. "They killed him and they burned down the whole village."

The Popular Defence Forces that Abyei blames are a milita that was used as a proxy force by the northern Sudanese military throughout the civil war.

A round of talks over Abyei is due to begin on Monday 7th March, but officials from Abyei are not optimistic. "We are not expecting anything to come out of the talks," the Canadian Press quoted Charles Abyei as saying.

"If Khartoum was serious they would not have supplied the whole areas of northern Abyei with arms. They have the intention of occupying the whole area of Abyei to try to control it."

Sources: Sudan Tribune, The Canadian Press, Reuters Africa, Satellite Sentinel Project

For more news and expert analysis about the Sahara region, please see Sahara Focus.