NGOs urge more action to back Sudan’s peace deal
Jan 8, 2007 (NAIROBI) — Five international aid agencies Monday warned that greater international attention is needed to ensure the peace process does not stall two years after the signing of a landmark peace agreement to end Sudan’s 21-year North-South civil war.
The agencies — CARE, Christian Aid, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Oxfam and the International Save the Children Alliance — said the implementation of the North-South peace has slipped heavily behind schedule as global attention focused on the separate crisis in the western region of Darfur.
“With everyone concentrating on Darfur, the CPA seems to bed rifting off the international community’s radar screen,” said Patty Swahn, the IRC ‘s Regional Director for East and Horn of Africa.
“The slow progress in implementing the agreement is extremely worrying; if there isn’t active support for the peace process, there is a real risk of renewed fighting,” Swahn added.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed on Jan. 9, 2005between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) formally ended one of Africa ‘s longest and bloodiest conflicts, in which more than 2 million people are estimated to have died.
The possibility of an upsurge in violence was dramatically signaled at the end of November when fighting broke out in the Southern town of Malakal between SPLM troops and forces aligned to the government in Khartoum, causing more than 150 fatalities and over 400 injuries.
Insecurity persists in many parts of South Sudan and there is still much work to be done on demobilizing the South’s many armed groups.
The agencies said another concern is the slow progress in addressing the status of Abyei and the transition areas of Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan.
“The international community needs to understand how fragile the situation is and to engage actively in supporting the process and holding the parties to account,” said Gary McGurk, Assistant Country Director for CARE South Sudan.
The agencies also urged donors and policymakers to pay closer attention to the implementation of the East Sudan Peace Agreement, which was signed in October 2006 between the Government of Sudan and the Eastern Sudan Front, ending a low-level insurgency that has simmered since the early 1990s, dividing the state of Kassalain two.
“The CPA and the peace agreements in Darfur and in the East cannot be treated as three completely separate processes; they are part of the same dynamic,” said Hussein Halane, program director for Save the Children.
The agencies said promoting post-conflict recovery and development are vital to stabilizing the volatile situation across the country, especially with hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people now returning, or planning to return, to the South.
“However, as donors transition to longer-term development aid it is also essential that the immediate humanitarian needs of Sudan’s many vulnerable populations continue to be addressed,” they said.
The organizations said people need to feel the “dividends” of peace in order to firmly break the cycle of conflict after more than 20 years of war.
“With development aid commitments taking time to reach the intended beneficiaries, every effort must be made to prevent the emergence of a funding gap just when communities are expecting to see the material benefits of peace.”
They called on the international community to engage more actively in monitoring and supporting the implementation of the CPA and the East Sudan Peace Agreement, as well as promoting a peaceful settlement in Darfur.
“Donors must ensure that ordinary Sudanese people benefit rapidly and tangibly from post-conflict aid, making certain that the needs of vulnerable communities in all parts of the country continue to be met as they transition from humanitarian to development funding and from bilateral to multilateral aid mechanisms,” they recommended.
According to the organizations, the Sudanese parties need to protect their citizens from violence and to implement faithfully the peace agreements that they have signed.
(Xinhua)