Think-tank urges end to aid restrictions

The international community should make every effort to ensure the Sudanese government and southern rebels agree to permanent, unhindered humanitarian access to Sudan's war-affected populations, a leading think-tank said in a new report.

"Warring parties and international aid providers in Sudan have an historic opportunity to bring to an end what is perhaps the most extreme and long-running example in the world of using access to humanitarian aid as an instrument of war," the International Crisis Group (ICG) said on Friday.

Manipulation of humanitarian assistance has been an "integral part" of the strategies of both warring parties throughout Sudan's 19-year civil war, ICG said in its report: 'Ending Starvation As a Weapon of War in Sudan'.

The Sudanese government in particular, according to ICG, has been responsible for hindering humanitarian efforts by denying flight access to conflict-affected people in south Sudan, and has "burdened the relief process with new layers of bureaucracy".

Representatives of Khartoum and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on 15 October signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) providing for a cessation of hostilities and unimpeded humanitarian access through to the end of 2002, prior to the resumption of peace negotiations in Kenya.

Chief mediator in the talks, Kenyan General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, has said he expects to achieve an extension of the MOU - both a cessation of hostilities and the removal of humanitarian access restriction - for a further three months until the end of March 2003.

However, both parties had broken agreements on humanitarian access in the past, meaning there was "every reason to be sceptical" that the current agreement would produce a lasting improvement in access, ICG said.

It was, therefore, vital for the international community to maintain pressure on both the government and the SPLM/A to provide unimpeded access on a permanent basis. "Failure would mean more deaths, and putting Sudan's fragile peace process at risk," ICG warned.

Peace talks being held under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) were scheduled to adjourn at the weekend until January. However, the negotiations were still continuing on Monday in an attempt to strike a deal on the key issues of power-sharing and wealth-sharing, Kenyan media reported on Monday.