Southern Sudan calls for an end to military build-up

The Southern Sudan government is appealing to the countries in the East African region and the Horn to stop a military build up near its border with the North to avoid a possible war that could scuttle the North-South deal.

The admission last week by Khartoum that it is mobilising troops in South Kordofan, where the disputed border between the North and South lies, has alarmed the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) and raised the possibility that elements within the National Congress Party (NCP) are trying to provoke a war to scuttle the implementation of the peace deal signed in Nairobi in 2005.

Khartoum argues that the deployment of six extra battalions is meant to deal with the Darfur rebel outfit, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which the military believes wants to extend its activities into South Kordofan.

But the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) suspects a hidden agenda and has warned that escalated military action by the Sudanese Armed Forces is a violation of the 2005 deal, which required both Khartoum and Juba to withdraw their forces from disputed areas, which would then be manned by a joint integrated unit.

Speaking on behalf of GOSS, the head of mission in Kenya, Andruga Duku, said the unilateral decision by Khartoum to deploy its troops in South Kordofan without consulting their partners in government not only violates the CPA, but breeds suspicion that Khartoum could be pursuing a hidden agenda.

“If there is insecurity in South Kordofan, the laid down mechanism is to contact the joint defence board that could order the deployment of a joint integrated unit, or call for a meeting between President Omar al-Bashir and First Vice President Salva Kiir to make a joint decision,” he said.

Mr Duku added that the South is raising the alarm because of the government’s decision to put the army on high alert.

He appealed to the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) and other stakeholders who were involved in the Sudanese peace process to act fast to prevent confrontation between the two partners.

Khartoum says it has intelligence that JEM was planning to attack South Kordofan, but the SPLA is concerned that the military build-up is bigger than even that during the war.

In May, JEM surprised Sudanese forces when it attacked Omdurman, with the intention of ousting the government of al-Bashir.

The position of the South is that the Darfur conflict is not an issue for NCP to fight alone, but one that can only be solved through dialogue by all interested parties.

As a result, the semi-autonomous South is not comfortable that Khartoum has unilaterally deployed forces in an area where its Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) had withdrawn from, and in a region where the two partners are in dispute over the Abyei boundary and oil deposits.

In the 2005 peace agreement that ended 20 years of war between North and South Sudan, both sides agreed to accept the “final and binding” ruling of the Abyei Boundary Commission. But President al-Bashir has rejected the findings on grounds that the commission had overstepped its mandate.

However, observers argue that Khartoum’s main reason for rejecting the findings was because it would mean giving up oil wells in the area.

The dispute over the North-South boundary has now been forwarded to the Hague for arbitration, and its outcome could also worsen the already volatile situation.

Experts on Sudan say that the two partners must consult to avoid a return to war, with Mr Duku arguing that there are warmonger elements within the Sudanese army and NCP who are bent on creating war to subvert the implementation of the Comprehensive Pace Agreement (CPA) that ended the 21-year civil war.

“Some elements in the North have realised that they were pressured by the international community to sign an agreement they cannot wriggle out of. Now they are trying to create a war situation to make them overturn the whole agreement. But they don’t realise that the implementation of the CPA to the full will give confidence to the people of Darfur to agree to a similar arrangement,” said Mr Duku.

The two partners almost went to war in May after an armed group attacked the town of Abyei and burned it to the ground, which resulted in a brief confrontation between SAF and the SPLA. The two sides then agreed to deploy the joint integrated unit in Abyei.

The leadership of Southern Sudan has said that they are not ready to be pushed into war and the SPLA will not fire the first shot, but warn that it should not be pushed to the wall.

A renewed war in South Sudan —the size of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi combined— could destabilise the whole region. Kenya’s manufacturing sector could suffer, given that the bulk of products going to South Sudan are manufactured in Kenya.

Kenya could also suffer from an influx of refugees and proliferation of illegal arms. In essence, a renewed war in Sudan would have a negative impact on Kenya, Uganda, the DRC, Chad and the Central African Republic.

The tension between North and South comes at a time when there are reports of an arms race between the two sides ahead of the 2011 referendum, in which the South is expected to vote to either remain in a united Sudan or secede.

Mr Duku maintained that GOSS is not under any arms embargo, given that the CPA allows the South to procure arms for training and converting the SPLA into a conventional army.