In South Sudan collapse of peace talks is imminent

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) warned on Friday of a collapse of th peace process in South Sudan and appealed the Security Council urgently to force the Sudanese government to keep to its commitments for the implementation of the peace process which were made in January 2005. Neither the agreed demarcation of the border between North and South Sudan nor the promised withdrawal of North Sudanese troops from the south of the country has been concluded.

„The collapse of the peace treaty would not only mean a renewed outbreak of the war in South Sudan, but would also spread a wild-fire in the entire region“, said the GfbV Africa correspondent, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen. For in the province of Kordofan, in Nubia in North Sudan and in the east of the country the tension is increasing. The Security Council will today be deliberating on the future of South Sudan. UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon expressed his concern on 22 nd August 2007 on the dragging out of the implementation of the peace treaty.

The peace of South Sudan is also endangered by the fact that the distribution of the income for the export of oil is still not transparent. On the question of the demarcation between North and South Sudan in the Abyei region, which has rich oil deposits, the government refuses to accept the demarcation recommended by an official commission.

In addition to this several institutions agreed in the peace treaty have not in fact been created and the democratisation of North Sudan has still not taken place. The elections planned for the year 2009 seem ever less likely since the Sudanese government has again postponed the census.

After 38 years of expulsion and genocide, to which 2.5 million people have fallen victim in South Sudan, many South Sudanese had hoped that the agreement would finally bring peace, freedom and human rights. However in the light of the violations of the agreement it is becoming ever less likely that the referendum in South Sudan planned for 2011 can take place. The people there can then decide whether South Sudan is to be an independent state or remain a part of Sudan. Dissatisfaction is also growing in South Sudan on the dragging out of reconstruction, which is being further hampered by bureaucratic provisions of the World Bank and corruption.