Sudanese MP threatens return to war over decree to form interim authority
Sudanese MP threatens return to war over decree to form interim authority
BBC Monitoring Service – United Kingdom
Published: Apr 14, 2007
Text of report by London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat website on 13 April
[Report from London by Mustafa Sirri: “Southern Sudan Parliamentarian: ‘Decree on interim administration for Abyei threatens return to war'”]
James Ageniq, the SPLM representative of the inhabitants of the oil-rich Abyei region at the Provisional National Council, has threatened to go back to the war square in the event of implementation of the presidential decree on forming an interim authority for the region for six months pending a settlement to an ongoing border delineation dispute since the signature of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement two years ago.
Ageniq said in a phone contact with Al-Sharq al-Awsat from Khartoum yesterday that the Abyei Protocol was “clear and unambiguous” and that the presidential decree “concerned only those who signed it”. He said that a report issued on the matter by a committee of international experts was binding on both parties. “The presidential decree is a circumvention of the stipulations of the protocol and we have nothing to do with it,” he said.
He warned that if the decree is implemented this would be a violation of the CPA and “would lead anew to square one of war, because the decree runs counter to the facts”. He said his constituency insisted on going by the report of the international experts which is binding on the two Naivasha parties and not open to renegotiations. “We categorically reject the establishment of an interim administration in Abyei because this is outside the agreements in the protocol,” he said.
He said the NCP and the SPLM have to refer to the IGAD committee that sponsored the Naivasha Agreement and its partners in the international community. “What is lacking in the protocol in order to issue a decree for an interim administration?” he asked.
Ministers of State at the Presidency Idris Muhammad Abd-al-Qadir for the NCP and Tilar [Reng] Deng for the SPLM announced in a statement before parliament that the [the two partners in the] government have agreed to form an interim administration for Abyei. They justified this by the need to run the affairs of the inhabitants pending a settlement. Abd-al-Qadir said the borders would be drawn on a temporary not a permanent basis.