Ethiopia leads initiative to mend fences between Sudanese rivals
22 August, 2011
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - Visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, is mediating between the central government in Khartoum and two politically-congested areas, Blue Nile and South Kordufan, in Sudan. The initiative seeks to avoid instability in the said areas and subsequently a repeat of the secession of the South.
However, of course, Ethiopia itself is protecting its own interest.
Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir said his country welcomed an initiative by Zenawi to mediate with the local leaders in the Blue Nile, bordering Ethiopia and South Kordufan, near Darfur region.
Rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) North Sudan and South Kordufan have engaged in an armed clash with the central government over results of elections won by the ruling National Congress Party.
The centre alleged that the regional rebel leader, Abdul Aziz Hilo, is actually serving the interests of newly-independent South Sudan and beyond it, foreign powers, seeking to destabilize the Sudan.
On his part, the Blue Nile leader, Malik Aggar, head of the Northern Faction of SPLA, complained that the central government had failed to fully implement a clause in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that gives his region the right to be consulted over its political fate.
Aggar threatens to go to the bush if cornered.
The central government argued that CPA refers to consultations of the said regions on how best to run the area, not of self determination but rather on power-sharing.
Khartoum said it would not tolerate any army parallel to the Federal Sudanese Armed Forces.
The Blue Nile governor-cum-SPLA leader maintains a robust force on borders with Ethiopia.
According to the CPA, all forces should be disarmed, demobilised and rehabilitated.
Both Hilo of South Kordufan and Aggar of the Blue Nile, were leading members of the SPLA command forces that led to the secession of the South and the two disgruntled leaders hail from areas known in the literature of the SPLA as "marginalized areas".
However, both of them are from north Sudan and both hail from Muslim families but when the south seceded, those leaders within SPLA kept their forces, a potential source for unrest.
"In fact, the real purpose of this visit by the Prime Minister to the country is to defuse any conflict or possible fighting in the Blue Nile and South Kordufan, with the view to achieving stability in those areas. The initiative is welcomed," the official Sudan news agency quoted El-Bashir as saying Monday, following a late evening meeting with Zenawi in Khartoum.
The two sides have declined to make public the nature of the initiative, which Zenawi would be launching but the Prime Minister has stressed that it would result in reaching peaceful settlements.
He also said he would lead a similar initiative to mend fences between Sudan and the South Sudan.
Zenawi himself, whose country shares 1,602-km-long borderline with the Sudan, has something to gain by finding a peaceful settlement between Khartoum and the peripheries.
Ethiopia, a land-locked country, receives its imports, especially petroleum, via Sudan and also depends on the south western areas of Fashaga, as its granary.
The area is bordering the Blue Nile region and any unrest there would open a new front for Ethiopia and at the same time deny it both access to the sea and access to its food silos.
Zinawe was quoted by the official news agency as stressing that he was "convinced the stability of the Sudan is stability for Ethiopia and the region as a whole."
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