South Sudan President urges patience with peace

March 12, 2007 (KAMPALA) — South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir urged his people on Monday to be patient in waiting for results from a deal aimed at rebuilding the oil-rich region after more than two decades of conflict.

“People thought that we would turn southern Sudan into paradise within six months after the day of the agreement,” he told journalists on a visit to Kampala for talks with his close ally, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

“Expectations are very high (but) … We have so many challenges in southern Sudan. It was destroyed by the war.”

The 2005 deal ended a civil war between the Islamist government in Khartoum and mostly animist and Christian southern rebels. Two million people, mostly in the south, died in the conflict, and more than four million were uprooted.

Aimed at repairing devastated southern Sudan, the pact created a semi-autonomous southern authority, a national coalition government, separate north and south armies and wealth sharing, and the option of full independence by way of a referendum in 2011.

But southern Sudan accuses Khartoum of being slow to implement the agreement and of reneging on key points of sharing oil revenue and drawing a common border through an area straddling Sudan’s richest energy reserves.

“The north-south borders have not yet been demarcated. This is affecting the redeployment of forces on both sides,” Kiir said.

Another problem was disarming and reintegrating the many pro- and anti-government militias armed by both sides during the war that still roam the south, he said, and he warned southern Sudan would only develop if it can attract investors.

“Investment runs away from insecurity,” Kiir said. “Everybody is still armed. This is something that will be combated.”

Attacks by unknown armed groups on south Sudan’s roads have hindered aid operations and deterred large investors.

(Reuters)