Sudanese president makes an ‘Oil for Unity’ offer

December 17, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir offered to let the South take the entire revenue from the country’s oil wealth in return for a unity vote in the referendum that will take place in less than a month.

Under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the north and south are to split proceeds from oil produced in the South equally.

The Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) in control of the South has persistently accused the North of paying them less than the 50% stipulated in the peace accord.

Bashir made the proposal public during his meeting on Thursday with a visiting delegation of the African Union Peace and Security Council.

“We say if they choose unity, we are ready for the national government to give up its full share in the oil of the South to the government of the south,” he said.

But Atem Garang who heads the SPLM bloc in the Sudanese parliament told the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV that the issue of unity is not oil related but rather a “matter of principle”.

He added that democratic transformation has not not occurred since the CPA was signed and that human rights are not preserved either.

This is not the first time the Sudanese leader makes such an offer. Last October he promised that the central government will pour billions in dollars for development projects in the South and will seek funding from any source including borrowing.

“As for the wealth sharing, we are ready to embrace the development of programs and projects adopted by the Unity Support Fund, in the areas of education, health, electricity, infrastructure, agricultural projects and manufacturing, until it reaches a level comparable to services provided in other states of Sudan,” Bashir told lawmakers at the time.

The Sudanese president said that the government will seek funding for these projects from the national budget, grants or loans “even if it exceeded 100% of the oil revenue”.

The statements reflect the general feeling about the inevitability of South Sudan’s separation.

On Thursday, Bashir’s assistant Nafie Ali Nafie said that efforts to campaign for unity have failed.

“No matter what we do we will reach this conclusion which will be recognized by the entire world… we must not deceive ourselves or cling to wishful thinking, we must resign to facts and realities,” he said.

Nafie accused the SPLM of working to make secession the likely choice.

(ST)