Sudan’s gov’t and main rebel group sign key wealth-sharing deal
NAIVASHA, Kenya, Jan 7 (AFP) — Sudan’s government and main southern rebel movement signed an agreement on sharing the oil-rich country’s wealth, a key component of efforts to end 20 years of civil war.
The accord, signed Wednesday in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, provides for an approximate 50-50 split of revenue from the country’s 300,000 daily barrels of oil and other income between the government and an envisaged autonomous administration in the south to be run by the political wing of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
The deal is due to come into effect once a comprehensive peace accord is signed and to remain in force during an envisaged six-year interim period when southern Sudan will enjoy autonomy from the national government before holding a referendum on its future.
The SPLA has been at war with Khartoum since 1983 and the conflict has claimed more than 1.5 million lives and displaced some four million people.
Wealth and resources have played a key role in the war and have come to overshadow its ethnic, religious and political roots.
Wednesday’s deal was signed by chief negotiators from both sides, Idris Mohammed Abdelgadir for the government and Nhial Deng Nhial for the SPLA, an AFP journalist at the ceremony reported.
The signing was witnessed by Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA leader John Garang as well as Kenyan foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka.
“This agreement is a major achievement that takes us close to a fair and just agreement in our country,” Garang said at the ceremony.
“The Sudan peace process is truly irreversible. We have surmounted another hill,” he added.
Most of the onstream oil in Sudan is located in the south, elements of whose predominantly African population took up arms again in 1983 against the hardline Islamic, Arabic regime in Khartoum, when a peace accord signed 11 years earlier collapsed.
As well as the division of revenues, the wealth-sharing accord covers details about the central bank’s administration and about a commission overseeing oil production.
“This is a tremendous development,” David Mozersky of the International Crisis Group think-tank told AFP shortly before the signing.
“But the toughest issue (of the peace process) remains on the table,” he said, referring to the future status of three disputed areas in central Sudan: Abyei, southern Blue Nile State and the Nuba Mountains.
“The international community needs to maintain its high level of involvment until a comprehensive peace deal is signed,” he urged.
In 2002, the Khartoum government and the SPLA agreed that the south would enjoy a six-year interim period of autonomy before holding a referendum on its future. During this period, a separate national administration would also be set up in partnership with the SPLA.
Details of this partnership and the power-sharing arrangements are still under discussion.
The bulk of the wealth-sharing deal was settled late last month, when it was agreed that the SPLA and the government would receive equal shares of oil revenue, after two percent was deducted to go to the state where the oil was produced.