Sudan chief negotiator spat with NCP official highlights divisions
March 24, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – A prominent official from the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) lashed out at Sudan’s negotiating team accusing them of weakness following a recent accord they signed with the neighbouring state of South Sudan.
The African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki is mediating between the two sides seeking resolution to these contentious items.
But despite successive rounds of talks no progress was made on bridging the differences.
Last week, Mbeki managed to get both countries to sign framework agreements dealing with borders and status of citizens in each others’ country. They included a clause granting northerners and southerners “freedom of residence, freedom of movement, freedom to undertake economic activity and freedom to acquire and dispose property”.
But the ‘Four Freedoms’ deal came under fire in Sudan especially from the Just Peace Forum (JPF) and hardline Islamists who assert that this was too much of a concession at a time when relations between the two countries are tense over allegations of Juba supporting rebels who want to topple the regime in Khartoum.
The negotiating team found itself having to defend signing the accord on almost a daily basis, while many senior officials in the government remained silent.
Qutbi al-Mahdi, who was until recently the NCP politburo chief, said the ‘Four Agreements’ was premature and “illogical”. He also described the negotiators as “softies” who gave away too much to South Sudan.
He stressed the need to change negotiating strategy to one that rearranges priorities and stops the practice of drafting policies based on impressions.
The leading NCP official, speaking at a forum in Khartoum, went on to describe the negotiators from Khartoum’s side as ignorant of their counterparts’ qualities. He pointed fingers at South Sudan’s chief negotiator Pagan Amum saying he is someone who is “full of hate towards anything northerner”.
Al-Mahdi also called Amum “greedy” who wants to take everything without giving anything in return on top of being an agent of the west. He added that no agreement can be reached unless South Sudan’s entire negotiating team is replaced which would pave the way for an understandings on security, oil and borders.
He warned against president Omer Hassan al-Bashir travelling to Juba for a summit scheduled for 3 April saying that South Sudan leader Salva Kiir “cannot be trusted”. South Sudan today assured Bashir that they will not execute the arrest warrant against him issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Prior to al-Mahdi speaking at the same forum, Sudan’s chief negotiator Idriss Abdel-Gadir described the attack on the “Four Freedoms” agreement from NCP officials as “painful” and warned against any attempt to scrap it saying it could provoke the “wrath of god” for not being thankful.
He said the same people who are critical now were unhappy about the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war and eventually led to creation of a new state on Sudan’s borders.
Abdel-Gadir said the CPA was the country’s greatest accomplishments since Sudan’s independence from Anglo-Egyptian rule in 1956.
(ST)