SUDAN: Time running out for “powder keg” – former diplomats
NAIROBI, 1 February 2010 (IRIN): The peace agreement which ended years of war between north and south Sudan could unravel unless immediate steps are taken to salvage it, two key former diplomats say.
“Today, five years after the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between North and South Sudan, there is a real threat of an all-out war returning to Sudan and still no permanent resolution to the Darfur conflict,” Lt-Gen Lazarus Sumbeiywo and John Danforth warned.
Sumbeiywo was chief mediator at the peace talks between Sudanese parties in the central Kenyan town of Naivasha. Danforth was US envoy for peace in Sudan.
Five years after the signing of the CPA, the former diplomats wrote in Kenya’s EastAfrican newspaper that crucial provisions have not been implemented. Conditions across the country had also deteriorated.
“Unless interna-tional support is dramatically increased to help North and South Sudan agree on the foundations of their future, we fear the [April 2010] elections and [2011] referendum may throw the country back into massive war,” they said.
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