Abyei row raises Sudan unity doubts – official says
By Nima Elbagir
KHARTOUM, March 10 (Reuters) – The Sudanese government suspects southern rebels are trying to annex the oil-rich Abyei area to the south in preparation for eventual secession from the north, an official close to peace talks said.
The dispute over Abyei, which is now part of the north, has held up high-level peace talks in the Kenyan town of Naivasha as the head of the government delegation consults his government.
The head, First Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, was expected to return to Kenya on Wednesday but the official said late on Tuesday that he would stay in Khartoum one day longer.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the government suspected the leadership of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) was under pressure from rank-and-file secessionists who question the need for a united Sudan.
“One would have to agree that the insistence on territorial gain detracts from the SPLM’s purported seriousness regarding unity,” he said. The SPLM leadership seems to want unity but there are elements that prefer secession, he added.
Under an agreement reached earlier in the peace talks, the southerners will have the chance to vote in a referendum in six years to determine the future of their region. Both sides say they are committed to unity and integration.
The Khartoum official said the government was not against a rebel suggestion for a referendum in Abyei on the status of the area, but thought it should be later to let the government use oil revenues to develop Abyei and win over the people.
Sudan began petroleum exports in the 1990s and now earns about $2 billion a year from its growing oil output of about 250,000 barrels per day.
“The government is not opposed to a referendum (in Abyei) as long as the referendum is for everyone. We consider that the SPLM are wasting time,” he said.
The government has said it proposes a unique status for Abyei under the presidency, with a referendum to be held after several years, but says the SPLM are rejecting this.
The civil war in southern Sudan has claimed about two million victims and pits the Islamist government in Khartoum against the mainly Christian, animist south, complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology.
Asked whether the talks would be extended because of the disagreement over Abyei, he said: “We are trying to stick to the prescribed dates. If there is a genuine reason to extend then we will do so, but as it stands we are planning to return on March 16,” he said.
Sudan’s foreign minister said last week the talks had not begun to discuss the other outstanding issues of the status of the disputed areas of the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile or power-sharing.