Bashir delineates Sudan’s “second republic”, promises reforms
July 12, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s president, Omer Hassan al-Bashir, has outlined the features of his country’s “second republic,” promising political reforms.
“Today I confirm before you what I had announced in Juba, that our relations with the budding southern state will be made-up of honoring agreements and the serious pursuit of consolidating stability and construction of positive and distinguished neighborly relations driven by mutual interest and preservation of deeply-entrenched social relationship between us and our brothers in the south,” Bashir said.
South Sudan officially split and formed its own state in line with the outcome of the region’s referendum, a vote promised under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which halted nearly half a century of intermittent civil wars with the South.
The Sudanese president reiterated his government’s commitment to thrashing out unfinished business with the South, in reference to post-independence arrangements which include, among other things, sharing of oil revenues.
“In the same spirit with which we implemented all provisions of the deal [CPA], we shall take on the pending and outstanding issues despite their sensitivity,” Bashir told the country’s highest legislative authority.
The Sudanese leader did not omit to address the volatile security situation in the country’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, two flashpoint regions straddling the borders with South Sudan.
Bashir announced that his government would continue “highly-concentrated development programs” in the two states which were devastated by fierce battles during the second Sudanese civil war 1983-2005 as their population largely sided with the South.
He further announced that his government would extend the deadline of the popular consultation process in the two states, a CPA-mandated mechanism to ascertain local views on the implementation of that agreement and how governance relationship with Khartoum should be re-organised.
“We are working to finalize the process of the popular consultation endorsed by your assembly last year,” Bashir told parliamentarians.
“I shall not forget to mention that we are in the process of amending the popular consultation law in order to extend the deadline stipulated by the law,” Al-Bashir said in reference to the fact that the popular consultations’ mandate had already expired with the CPA on July 9.
“I assure people of South Kordofan that we are keen to widen the range of fair political participation for them and enable them to handle their own affairs,” he added.
South Kordofan is currently in a state of war after the northern army clashed with forces aligned with South Sudan. The fighting escalated into artillery and aerial bombardment carried out by the north’s Sudan Armed Forces, leading to the killing of hundreds and displacement of more than 70,000 people, according to UN figures.
(ST)