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Signing of Protocols Puts to an End Fears of Sabotage

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
NEWS
January 3, 2005
Posted to the web January 3, 2005

By Ken Ramani
Nairobi
The Sudanese government and SPLA/M signed two crucial protocols on permanent
ceasefire and modalities of implementing peace agreements last Friday.
Other protocols on wealth and power sharing, security arrangements, as well as
on the three disputed areas of Abyei, Nuba Mountains, and Southern Blue Nile
had been signed earlier.
The protocol on permanent cessation of hostilities is a guarantee that SPLA and
Khartoum would never again fight.
According to SPLA spokesman, Dr Samson Kwaje, the protocol on modalities of
implementation provides for the operationalisation of the agreement-when to do
what, when, the funding of projects, among others.
Vice President Osman Ali Taha and Dr John Garang and their respective
delegations, made concessions on a wide range of issues, including the three
disputed regions of Nuba Mountains, Abyei, and Southern Blue Nile.
Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir, South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki and
Kenyan Vice President Moody Awori witnessed the signing of the last main
protocols that will form part of the final peace deal to be signed in State
House, Nairobi.
The ceremony will be held on January 9 and will be attended by Heads of State,
diplomats and representatives of regional and international organisations,
including the United Nations.
Kwaje said governors will be appointed by SPLA to administer the 10 states.
"After the elapse of three years, a general election will be conducted and the
governors would then be democratically elected by the legislature," he said.
According to one of the six protocols, a referendum will be conducted in
southern Sudan, five years after the coming into force of the protocols. The
southerners would vote whether to remain part of the greater Sudan or to break
away and form their own country and government.
But during the interim period, SPLA will continue ruling the semi-autonomous
south with Garang as President, but the region will still be part of the
greater Sudan, administered from Khartoum.
Kwaje said a new Constitution for the country will be drafted and the state
will be separated from religion as provided for in the first protocol-dubbed
Machakos Protocol.
The protocols enjoy international guarantees and the south could declare
independence should Khartoum violate its part of the bargain.
SPLA's combatants will soon be integrated to the national army under the
command of Khartoum but will be free to have a reserve army which it will
continue paying salaries and allowances.
The spokesman acknowledged that the SPLA/M administration faces an uphill task
especially on meeting the people's expectations.
"Our people need schools, hospitals, water, roads, jobs, houses, food, and
security. SPLA will do its best not to dash the high hopes of the southerners
who have not had peace for so long," Kwaje said.
The Sudan civil war was mainly caused by a denial of regional autonomy and
inequitable distribution of national wealth.
The discovery of oil in the south aggravated the situation in 1972 and in 1983,
SPLA took up arms and declared total war on Khartoum.
But the Bashir regime accepted to negotiate with SPLA to end the war that is
believed to has claimed over three million lives and left millions more
internally displaced or living as refugees all over the world.

   

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