Garang wants balance of nations in UN Sudan force

By Katie Nguyen

RUMBEK, Sudan, Jan 23 (Reuters) – A U.N. peace force for southern Sudan should include countries without energy ties to the oil-exporting region to balance any nations with such interests, southern leader John Garang said on Sunday.

Leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) John Garang (L) inspects a guard of honour in Rumbek, on Saturday January 22, 2005. (AFP).

The region’s oil resources were a factor in two decades of civil war which ended earlier this month with a peace deal between Khartoum and the southern rebels.

Speaking after talks with U.N. Sudan envoy Jan Pronk, Garang said more consultations were needed to ensure what he called the neutrality of the proposed peacekeeping force.

Garang will be first vice-president in an interim government to be formed under the peace accord. Some 2 million people were killed and millions were left homeless in the conflict.

Southerners can decide in six years whether to secede.

The U.N. Security Council is due next month to order the deployment of military observers and protection forces tasked with monitoring a truce between government troops and fighters of Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

“You need a balanced force with respect to the factors that are and were in war – the issue of oil, in terms of oil interests, and the issue of the identity of the country. So you need a neutral force that balances these factors,” Garang told a news conference at his southern stronghold.

SPLM/A officials say they would have reservations about any participation by Malaysia or China, because of their oil production joint ventures with the Islamist government in Khartoum, or by Pakistan due to its Islamic identity.

Differences between Garang and Khartoum on the topic may stall the deployment of the force, expected to number between 9,000 and 10,000, U.N. sources have said.

Egypt, Kenya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and India have offered troops for the mission, one U.N. source said.

Pronk said at a separate new conference he had told Garang the force was expected to number 750 monitors with the rest of the mission made up of protection troops and logistics staff.

“We have a balance between Islamic and non Islamic countries,” he said of the mission’s planned composition. He did not name any countries.

“The SPLA has asked for some time to consider all these things. We don’t want to lose the political momentum.”

Garang said his officials had yet to receive any of Sudan’s oil revenues even though the government committed itself to share earnings from southern fields with the SPLM/A on a 50-50 basis.

Sudan earns over $3 billion a year from oil at current prices.

“We have not received a single dollar up to now of the 50 percent, ” he said. “How much is it? That has to be worked out. Our people shall have access to the oil contracts and we will know concretely how much is 50 percent of the oil money.”

Pronk also said he had asked Garang to intensify contacts with rebels in Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region in order to help flagging peace talks with the Khartoum government.

Garang said he had no peace proposal for Darfur but could always listen. “Until such time as we become partners of the new government of national unity this is the only role we can play: A moral role on the sidelines,” he said.

Darfur rebels took up arms in early 2003 after years of tribal clashes over scarce resources in the arid area. Tens of thousands have died and almost 2 million have fled their homes since the fighting began.