Time bomb is ticking: Danger of war is growing in South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) warned on Thursday of the danger of a new war in South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. „Four years after the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement on 9th January 2005 South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains are turning into a time-bomb. Many people are disappointed that their living conditions have not improved”, reported the Sudan expert of the GfbV, Ulrich Delius. The peace agreement has still not been put into real practice. There is today still a conflict between North and South Sudanese on the dividing-line between the two parts of the country, especially in those regions which have rich oil deposits. There has also been no agreement reached concerning a law on security and the press or any commission on land and human rights. „This should all have been settled as laid down in the agreement”, said Delius. „The international community must now insist on this in order to prevent a new outbreak of war.” The peace agreement between North and South Sudan ended 37 years of war and genocide, in which more than 2.5 million South Sudanese and 500,000 of the Nuba tribes fell victims.

The Catholic Sudanese Bishops’ Conference pointed out in November 2008 that both parties to the conflict had disregarded the „spirit of the treaty”. Its concern was justified since both the government of North Sudan and the autonomous South Sudanese administration were importing an increasing amount of arms, said Delius. It was clear that both sides were preparing for a new war. The South Sudanese were supposed in the terms of the agreement to decide in a plebiscite in the year 2011 whether South Sudan was to become an independent state or to remain part of Sudan.

„The danger of war is particularly great in the Nuba mountains in the region of Kordofan”, warned Delius. The black African inhabitants of this part of North Sudan, which has an Arab majority, see themselves as the losers of the peace agreement of 2005. Kordofan is supposed under the terms of the agreement to receive two percent of the proceeds from the export of oil. However the people have waited so far in vain for more development and prosperity. The Nuba see themselves as disadvantaged. „With unemployment figures among young people at 90 percent the situation in Kordofan remains as explosive as in Darfur at the outset of the genocide”, warned Delius.

The South Sudanese government has already begun to arm nomads in Kordofan with G3 rifles and Kalashnikovs. The G3 rifles were developed in Germany and presumably produced under licence in Iran. Nuba groups are also trying to obtain new weapons. The liberation movement „Kordofan Association Movement” (KAD) is at present holding talks with the „Movement for Justice and Equality” (JEM), which is fighting in Darfur on a coordination of their military and political struggle.