Lord Bishop of Salisbury writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his oral question in the House of Lords on Sudan's plans for the 2010 elections. Skip related content
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 between the North and South put an end to Sudan's civil war, that had left nearly two million dead since 1983.
It gave the Sudanese nation an opportunity for 'attractive unity'. The agreement laid out an interim period between 9th July 2005 and 8th July 2011.
If the agreement had been fully implemented from the outset, a peaceful, attractive unity might have had a chance in Sudan. However, every protocol has either not been fully implemented or is under discussion for less-than-full implementation.
The year-late National Census results, on whose basis elections and a secession referendum will be based, were rejected outright by the government of Southern Sudan.
The national general elections, which were to have given a chance to see what a democratic and united Sudan could look like, have been postponed twice, and are now only due to be held in April 2010.
The Referendum Bill was supposed to be enacted by 9th July last year, but agreement has still not been reached.
Church leaders tell us that the vast majority of the southern Sudanese people no longer trust any talk of confederation or 'attractive unity', and want an independent Southern Sudan. And the six years to prepare for the referendum have now been whittled down to just 14 months.
Meanwhile violence in the South has killed more than 1,200 this year, and displaced 250,000. The rate of violent deaths in the South now surpasses that in Darfur. Church leaders believe these are not isolated incidents, but a co-ordinated campaign to destabilise the South in the run-up to the elections and the referendum.
Militaries in North and South Sudan are engaged in an arms race that risks plunging the nation back into civil war.
If the CPA is to be made to work, it must be fully implemented and fully supported by guarantor governments, including HMG. The two struggling partners must also be pressured to turn their attention to a post-2011 Sudan, on which the CPA says nothing. The alternative is a return to civil war which would make Darfur pale into insignificance.
The 14 months left to deliver the CPA are critical then, not just for its own implementation, but for securing a long-term future for Sudan, a future on which rest lasting consequences for the Horn of Africa and the entire continent.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The pandemic of swine flu may be hitting a peak in the Northern Hemisphere, global health officials said on Friday, but they cautioned it was far from over.
