Support for self-determination withdrawn

Meanwhile, the SPLA accused the Khartoum government of reneging on its support for a referendum to determine the future of the south, where rebels are fighting for self-determination. “The government of Sudan has no right to give or deny secession,” spokesperson Samson Kwaje was quoted as saying by AFP on Monday. He was responding to a statement made to journalists in Khartoum on Saturday by Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma’il who said the government “strongly opposes the secession of the southern part of the country and is determined to keep Sudan a united state”. Kwaje said the foreign minister was speaking “in bad faith” as Khartoum had agreed on several occasions to the principle of holding a referendum on self-determination for the south, AFP reported. Various southern rebel movements have fought for secession since independence.

A regional diplomat involved in the Sudan peace talks told IRIN there were difficulties with the “conceptualisation” of self-determination. Agreement on the principle of self-determination did not mean automatic secession, said the diplomat. However people in southern Sudan should be given the option of a referendum in a transitional period. Peace talks brokered by the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) came to a standstill over the issue of self-determination last year, but the government had accepted it “as an option” this time, the diplomat added.