South Sudan may pull deputies from parliament – Machar

November 1, 2007 (JUBA, Sudan) — The government of south Sudan might pull its deputies out of the national parliament if Khartoum does not make more progress towards meeting southern demands, the vice president of the region said on Thursday.

The southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) withdrew its ministers and presidential advisers from Khartoum two weeks ago, saying the central government had failed to carry out key parts of a north-south peace agreement, signed in 2005.

The political crisis provoked international concern for the future of the agreement, a landmark deal that ended Africa’s longest civil conflict.

“We agreed that we would let our members of parliament stay in the national assembly until we see what happens,” Vice President Riek Machar told Reuters.

“Then we could recall them.”

The south wants northern troops to be redeployed from southern oil fields and the north-south border to be defined. Other demands include resolution of the status of the oil-rich Abyei region in central Sudan and funding for a delayed census.

The 2005 agreement led to the establishment of the semi-autonomous southern government, headed by SPLM leader Salva Kiir, who is also Sudan’s first vice president. It also allows southerners to vote in 2011 on secession from the north.

After the SPLM ministers withdrew, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir agreed to a cabinet reshuffle, one demand of the former southern rebels. The SPLM saw the reshuffle as positive, although officials said the ministers approved by Bashir were not the ones Kiir wanted.

Sudan’s north-south war claimed 2 million lives and drove 4 million people from their homes. It largely pitted Khartoum’s Islamist government against mostly Christian animist rebels.

(Reuters)