Sudanese VP Kiir complains peace deal slow

Jan 28, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese Vice President Salva Kiir said on Saturday implementation of a peace deal to end Sudan’s north-south civil war was extremely slow and that monies owed to the south still had not been paid.

Kiir, head of the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), became first vice president under the 2005 deal which ended Africa’ longest war and created a coalition government in the capital Khartoum.

Kiir said his northern partners had not given the south half of Sudan’s oil revenues as the deal requires.

“We still have not got the real share of the oil revenues,” he told reporters in Khartoum, adding there were differences over the amount of oil produced in Sudan.

Sudan’s two main oil fields are in south Sudan, but the refinery and oil pipelines are in the north.

The northern oil minister puts oil production at around 330,000 barrels per day (bpd), but the SPLM says it could be as high as 450,000 bpd.

The south, devastated by more than two decades of civil war, desperately needs the monies to build its infrastructure and form a functioning government.

The peace agreement also gives southerners the right to vote on secession within six years.

Kiir said implementation of the deal was “extremely slow” and warned this behaviour would push southerners to vote for separation rather than unity.

“The events that are happening now clearly show that unity will not be made attractive,” he said. “The southerners are very sensitive to this.”

Kiir also called on donor nations who last year promised up to $4.5 billion to rebuild Sudan to fulfil their pledges.

“This money has not come,” he said, adding without it the southerners would not see the dividend of peace.

Many southerners complain that since the death of Kiir’s predecessor and the architect of the 2005 peace deal, John Garang, the SPLM had lost its influence in the national capital Khartoum.

Kiir said he was doing his best to implement the deal, but acknowledged he may not have as much clout as he would like. “I believe I am part of the government (but) whether I have influence or not that’s another thing,” he said.

Garang was recognised as a national leader in both the north and south. His deputy Kiir was relatively unknown in the north when he was suddenly given the task of leading the SPLM after Garang’s death in August in a helicopter crash.

The southern deal does not cover separate conflicts in the east and the western Darfur region.

(Reuters)