South Sudanese rebels to release prisoners of war
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Southern Sudanese rebels will release all prisoners of war within one week of a deal to end more than two decades of civil war, which has claimed more than 2 million lives, a Sudanese minister said on Thursday.
State Minister of Foreign Affairs Najeeb al-Kheir Abdul Wahab said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had told the government the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) would release all 750 prisoners of war in the days after the deal is signed on Sunday.
“This is all the prisoners of war they have,” he told reporters in Khartoum, adding he was not aware if the government had yet made any reciprocal plans.
However, SPLM spokesman Samson Kwaje disputed the timeframe and number of prisoners to be released.
“There’s an agreement that the prisoners of war will be released 30 days after the signing of the final peace deal, but we haven’t talked of numbers,” Kwaje said in Nairobi.
The final protocols paving the way to peace were agreed on Dec. 31 in Kenya and include details such as the redeployment of northern forces from the south within 30 months from the date of signing, and the return of SPLM forces from the east to the south within one year of Jan. 9.
The protocols also outline the roles to be played by the president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the first vice-president, SPLM leader John Garang, and provide for a vice president to deputise for Garang in his absence.
It did not say who would be vice president, but analysts say chief government negotiator and current first vice president, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, could well take the post.
The permanent ceasefire sets up joint armed units, totalling around 40,000 troops, to be deployed throughout the south and the three previously disputed areas of Abyei, Southern Blue Nile and South Kordofan, as well as one unit in the capital.
The funding of the southern army had been a stalling point in the talks, begun more than two years ago.
The deal says that during a six-month interim period the SPLM units would be funded principally by the southern administration, and the northern army and joint units by the national government based in Khartoum.
It leaves the long-term funding of the southern forces to the national assembly to resolve during the interim period.
The national assembly of Sudan, seated in Khartoum, will have 450 members. The ruling National Congress party will take 52 percent and the SPLM 28 percent. Other northern parties will have 14 percent and 6 percent will go to other southern forces.
In the protocols, published on the SPLM Web site www.splmtoday.com, the government agrees to lift the state of emergency imposed in Sudan since 1999, “except in areas where conditions do not permit”.
The SPLM’s Kwaje said the state of emergency would be lifted in all “ceasefire zones”, and elsewhere subject to the new government of national unity.
The western Darfur region is likely to meet that criterion because of a rebellion which has raged there for almost two years, forcing around 2 million people from their homes.
The southern civil war began in 1983 and broadly pits the Islamist government based in Khartoum against the mainly Christian, animist south, complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology. It is Africa’s longest-running civil war and has forced more than 4 million people from their homes.