SPLM says Sudan still arming militias in the South
July 29, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese armed forces are still arming and supporting militias in southern Sudan in violation of a peace deal which ended two decades of a bloody civil war, a southern official said on Saturday.
Under the north-south peace deal signed in January 2005 all southern militias were told to join the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) or the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or lay down their arms.
But hundreds of people have been killed in continued clashes between militias in the south east Upper Nile region and the areas around Sudan’s main oil fields which are in the south.
Pagan Amum, secretary-general of the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) which joined the coalition government in Khartoum with the northern National Congress Party under the 2005 peace deal, accused the NCP of violating the peace deal.
“The continuation of support to militias in the south from elements of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) is a violation of the peace agreement,” Amum told reporters in Khartoum.
“It is known who is giving them arms, it is known who is giving them money … elements from SAF are continuing to arm them,” Amum said.
The northern government armed southern militias during Africa’s longest civil war, which killed 2 million people and forced more than 4 million to flee their homes. But the SAF denies it is still supporting these militias.
The January 2005 accord did not cover a separate conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region where for more than three years a campaign of rape, killing and murder has driven 2.5 million people from their homes and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Cash-strapped African Union troops have failed to stop the violence and have expressed support for an international move towards a U.N. take-over of their mission in Darfur.
But the NCP have refused likening it to a Western invasion and accusing the world body of colonising Sudan. Senior NCP officials have said anyone who advocates sending U.N. troops to Darfur is a traitor.
Amum said the government had admitted it could not protect civilians in Darfur when it invited AU troops there in 2004.
“The AU are foreign forces allowed by the government of Sudan,” he said. “If the invitation of foreign forces to Darfur is a betrayal then the government is the first traitor as they allowed the deployment of foreign forces to Darfur,” he added.
The north-south deal invited 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers to monitor implementation, which are based in the south, in central Sudan, in the east and even in the capital Khartoum.
Amum said as U.N. troops were already deployed throughout Sudan, he did not understand why the NCP was against their deployment in Darfur too.
“Has Darfur become the only holy place in the whole of Sudan because they won’t let (international forces) in there?
“If the aim is to protect civilians … then welcome to international forces especially if the state cannot protect the civilians,” he added.
Critics say the government fears U.N. troops will arrest any officials likely to be indicted by the International Criminal Court investigating alleged war crimes there.
(Reuters)