Little time left to avert a terrible disaster as war clouds gather once again over Sudan

The world’s attention was rightly seized by the terrible conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur in which hundreds of thousands of civilian lives were lost. It was too often forgotten, however, that the tragedy of Darfur came after Sudan’s North-South conflict, Africa’s longest running civil war in which over two million people were killed.
Today, five years after the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between North and South Sudan, there is a real threat of all-out war returning to Sudan and still no permanent resolution to the Darfur conflict.

We are writing as individuals who were privileged to experience the process at close hand. We witnessed the long, frustrating and at times seemingly impossible process of negotiating the CPA itself. We saw how the parties’ common desire for peace gradually overcame enmity and mutual distrust and how the CPA, signed on January 9, 2005, established a Government of National Unity between two former enemies.

The CPA spelled out how the Government of National Unity would deal with delicate issues such as wealth- and power-sharing, border demarcation and repositioning of troops over a six-year transitional period. It also established a semi-autonomous government in the South and three transitional areas.

In two of those areas, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, residents were promised a democratic process of popular consultations; in Abyei, the third area, they secured the right to decide, through a referendum, whether to remain in Southern Kordofan (part of North Sudan) or to join the Southern Sudanese state of Bahr El Ghazal. Central to the CPA was an affirmation of the right of Southern Sudanese to hold a referendum on self-determination in 2011.

Since then, five years have lapsed and the parties now stand on the brink of a new chapter in Sudan’s history. National elections are scheduled for April but crucial provisions of the CPA have not been implemented. Unless international support is dramatically increased to help North and South Sudan agree on the foundations of their future, we fear the elections and the referendum may throw the country back into massive war.

The deteriorating conditions in Sudan show the urgency of the situation. Last year saw a serious spike in violence in South Sudan — in recent months, more people have been killed in armed conflict in the South than in Darfur. Though violence has decreased in Darfur, the root causes of the conflict have not yet been addressed. The situation in Eastern Sudan and the three transitional areas of Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile remain volatile as well.

The CPA was not able to solve every problem in Sudan. But it was designed to pave the way for elections and a Southern referendum that was intended to be the culmination of a six-year process to help Sudan emerge more democratic, better governed and at peace. Time is fast running out to realise these aspirations. We are three months away from elections that, at the current rate of preparation, are likely to fail to live up to democratic standards and to exacerbate ongoing violence.

We are deeply concerned that the historic opportunity offered by the CPA — and hailed by world leaders as a momentous victory for peace — will be foregone unless the intensity of effort that was required to reach the agreement in the first place is now resuscitated to preserve it. We implore concerned nations to support the Sudanese parties in an attempt to find a permanent peace by:

• Agreeing on a joint mechanism, including intensified mediation and technical support, to help North and South Sudan implement the remainder of the CPA, including the popular consultations in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile as well as the Abyei and Southern referendums;

• Pressing the Government of National Unity to make free and fair elections possible;

• Supporting increased measures for civilian protection by the UN Mission in South Sudan (Unmis) and the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (Unamid), including through contingency planning around potential flashpoints for violence.

It is already too late to implement the full promise of the CPA. But there is still some time to avoid a near certain disaster that would set the people of Sudan back to the darkest days of the North-South war. We urge world leaders to use every day we have left.

Lt. General Lazarus Sumbeiwyo is the former Kenyan and Inter-Government Authority on Development (Igad) special envoy for the Sudan conflict and chief mediator in the Naivasha peace talks.

John C. Danforth was special envoy for peace in Sudan from 2001-2004 and former US ambassador to the United Nations