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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Thu Sep 09 2010 - 11:59:14 EDT
Clinton comments on Sudan split "incorrect"-party
Thu Sep 9, 2010 11:56am GMT
KHARTOUM, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A senior Sudanese official on Thursday hit back
at comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Sudan was facing
a "ticking time-bomb" in the countdown to the "inevitable" secession of the
country's south.
People from Sudan's oil-producing south are four months away from the
scheduled start of a referendum on whether to stay united with north Sudan
or declare independence -- a vote promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended
decades of north-south civil war.
Analysts say southerners overwhelmingly want independence and there is a
risk of a return to conflict if the north tries to delay or obstruct the
vote to keep control of the south's oil.
Clinton told the Council on Foreign Relations think tank on Wednesday that
it was "inevitable" southerners would vote for secession and that
Washington, together with international partners, needed to work out ways to
persuade the north to accept that result peacefully. [nN08114488]
Rabie Abdelati, from the north's dominant National Congress Party (NCP),
told Reuters on Thursday Clinton was "incorrect" and that Sudan would reject
any foreign attempts to interfere in the poll.
"We are working to achieve unity up to the last moment. We don't think
secession is inevitable," he said. "Everything is going very smoothly. We
don't see any sign that there will be a problem between the north and the
south, that there will be war."
Abdelati said most southerners favoured unity but their voices were drowned
out by a few separatist leaders from the south's former rebel Sudan People's
Liberation Movement (SPLM). Nobody was immediately available for comment
from the SPLM.
Northerners and southerners remain split on how they would divide oil
revenues after the vote -- most of the country's crude reserves lie in the
south but the north has the bulk of the infrastructure.
Clinton said southern independence would be difficult for northerners to
accept, adding: "We've got to figure out some ways to make it worth their
while to peacefully accept an independent south," without specifying
possible incentives.
"We do not need any incentives or temptations from the U.S., Europe or
France ... There is no need to accept any interference," Abdelati said on
Thursday.
There have been widespread concerns that Sudan had not left itself enough
time to organise the potentially explosive plebiscite.
The members of a commission to organise the referendum were only announced
in late June, and its secretary general appointed last week, after months of
wrangling between northern and southern leaders.
Sudan's president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who leads the NCP, has promised to
accept the result of the vote but says he will campaign to persuade
southerners to choose unity.
Aid agencies estimate 2 million people died in Sudan's north-south conflict
over oil, religion, ethnicity and ideology. The war destabilised much of
east Africa. (Reporting by Andrew Heavens, Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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