POLITICS-SUDAN: Referendum For the South Proposed

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Judith Achieng'

NAIROBI, May 7 1998 (IPS) - Sudan’s belligerents have agreed here to hold a referendum to decide whether the people of the south want to secede or remain part of the Northeast African country.

But, in two-day talks which ended here this week, the representatives of Sudan government and of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) confirmed they have reached a deadlock over the exact boundary of the south.

The government insists that the borders of the south should remain as they stood at the time of independence in January 1956. At that time, the south consisted of three provinces — Equatoria, Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile. But now, 10 federal states have been created there by the Islamic fundamentalist regime of Lt-Gen Omar Hassan al Bashir, who seized power in 1989.

At the other extreme, the SPLA demands that Abyei, Southern Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan provinces, which were part of the south before independence, be involved in the referendum.

The three, now an intergral part of northern Sudan, are controlled by SPLA forces.

The proposed plebiscite will be exercised through an internationally supervised referendum at the end of the interim period to be negotiated through IGAD, said a joint communique issued here after the talks on Tuesday.

“The people of Southern Sudan will determine their political destiny on two options, namely unity or outright secession,” said the communique.

The Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), chaired by Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, groups Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti and Somalia. It has been mandated by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in the Sudan.

Kenya’s Foreign Minister Bonaya Godana, who represented President Moi, commended the progress at the talks. “There has been some significant progress, not as much as any of the parties (in conflict) would have hoped to achieve,” he told journalists here on Wednesday.

More than 60 representatives including the foreign ministers of Uganda, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia as well as members of the diplomatic corp attended the talks.

The SPLA delegation was led by commander Nhial Deng, while the Khartoum side was headed by foreign minister Moustafa Osman.

The issue of self-determination forms part of the IGAD Declaration of Principles (DOP) which had stymied talks between the Khartoum government and the SPLA.

President Moi warned on Monday that the conference would confine itself to the DOP — which includes secular constitution and equitable distribution of wealth — agreed upon by all parties during the IGAD heads of states summit held here in July last year. “…anything extraneous to the Declaration of Principles, has no place in the negotiations,” Godana said.

During the talks, Khartoum submitted a reviewed constitution draft which Osman said would meet SPLA’s demands of accommodating all the Sudanese people regardless of their religion, race or creed.

But exiled Sudanese here have scoffed at the proposed constitution, which Khartoum is testing in a separate referundum soon. “A constitution which evokes the name of Allah (God) at every chapter is pretty much a religious constitution,” said a refugee here.

The next round of talks will be held within the next three months in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the parties will pick up from where they left, Godana said.

The last meeting failed here in November when Khartoum and the SPLA refused to compromise.

Following the failure of the November meeting, President Moi had threatened to resign as IGAD chairman unless the two sides drop their intransigency.

This time around though, the IGAD exerted strong pressure on the two parties in a bid to persuade them to commit themselves to a lasting solution to the problem of southern Sudan.

“We impress upon the parties concerned that an urgent solution is required, especially because the people of southern Sudan who have for long been ravaged by war are now faced with starvation,” Godana said at his opening speech.

Osman said his government had offered an immediate cease-fire so as to help ease the flow of humanitarian assistance to areas in Southern Sudan affected by famine. “We feel that a cease-fire would aid the flow of humanitarian relief in the area,” Osman told journalists at a separate press conference here on Wednesday.

But the SPLA charged that by linking a cease-fire to relief, Khartoum was using it as a condition for relief transport in Bahr el Ghazal region where about 400,000 people need emergency food aid.

“We feel that this cease-fire … has never been intended to be genuine but a mere window dressing calculated to mislead the international community,” said John Luk Jok, SPLA’s official spokesman.

“We will only accept a cease-fire under the concept of IGAD,” he said.

More than 1.5 million people — mostly non-combatants — have died in the south of famine-related deseases since the SPLA launched its bush war 15 years ago to press for autonomy for the south, populated by non-Muslim Blacks who make up 1/3 of Sudan’s estimated 30 million people.

Despite the unpredictable nature of the two sides, observers here have remained optimistic about the next round of talks. “We are optimistic that the Addis Ababa meeting will get somewhere,” said an African diplomat here.