Tuesday, November 27, 2007

IT'S ALL ABOUT ABYEI


Tension has risen between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) [over] lack of progress in the implementation of key provisions of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

"The SPLM is frustrated because it believes the NCP [the ruling National Congress Party] is deliberately failing the CPA,"

US President George W Bush and Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir [meet] on 15 November.

Al-Bashir also said he would not budge "an inch" on the contested borders of the oil-rich Abyei region. "The NCP is ready for war and will not ... retreat from the 1905 border,"

The SPLM gave a 9 January 2008 deadline for the resolution of several provisions in the CPA - including the
  • Abyei protocol,
  • redeployment of forces,
  • demarcation of the border,
  • population census,
  • lack of transparency in oil sector management,
  • democratic transformation and rule of law, and
  • national reconciliation.

SPLM leaders deny there is a plan to break away from the rest of Sudan after the January deadline...Riek Machar, Vice-President of Southern Sudan, said.

The oil-rich Abyei region, which was granted special administrative status...A decision by the Abyei Boundary Commission was disputed by the NCP..."They want to implement the protocol minus the areas that have oil because they want to carve them out of the South. This is not acceptable."


another complication - a growing rapport between the SPLM and rebels from the war-ravaged Darfur region, who recently met in Juba to discuss a common strategy against the Khartoum government.

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