Bashir Beats Drums of War

By Eric sande

President Omar Al Bashir accused former civil war enemy - Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), who now is the major partner of the peace agreement, of short change on a peace deal, laying clear warning that a worse conflict could erupt if a disputes resolution was not reached in time before the referendum on secession.

 Bashir expressed his regret five years on, over the retreat that saw Khartoum and the south’s dominant SPLM’s commitment stipulated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the current open declaration of the SPLM leader, Salva Kiir that he stands in favour of the separation of the south in the coming referendum scheduled for next January

 He says  that was against the terms of the 2005 peace deal that said both northern and southern leaders should try to make unity “attractive” to southerners before the vote.

 Bashir, at a conference in Sirte, Libya Saturday 9 October, stressed that a number of requirements and issues shall be settled before holding the referendum, which are the demarcation of the border between the north and the south, the citizenship, the wealth, the indebtedness and water.

 He warned that failure in the settlement of these issues before the referendum would make the process as a project for a new dispute between the north and the south that can be much serious than the dispute which was existing before the signing of the CPA.

In January 2011, the peace deal is expected to come to a climax with a referendum giving the people of the oil-producing south the right to decide whether to become autonomous and have independence or stay as part of Sudan.