[Al Arabiya] Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said on Tuesday he would not accept an alternative to unity despite his commitment to a peace deal with the south that provides for an independence referendum."Despite our commitment to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, we will not accept an alternative to unity," Bashir told parliament in a speech.
| "But we're going to have that vote anyway, just to shut up the idiots at the UN... and so they won't arrest me the next time my wife wants to shop in Paris." |
The peace deal gave the former southern rebels, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, semi-autonomous powers and a share in government, and promised a referendum on southern independence.
Analysts say the vote is expected to favor independence.
Bashir pledged a fair referendum, but added that demarcation of disputed border points with the south was a "decisive factor in conducting a fair and free election."
Preparations for the January independence vote are seriously behind schedule, stirring fears of a new conflict between the two sides if there is a delay.
90 days away
"We are left with 90 days. The time is very critical. If the parties fail to sort out these issues this could lead to an end of the peace processor itself. And the peace may unravel in Sudan," he told news hounds in the Ethiopian capital where the talks were being held.
Members of the northern delegation said they may hold a news conference later on Tuesday.
Delegates told Rooters that Sudan's Second Vice-President Ali Osman Taha was flying to Juba on Tuesday to meet south Sudan president Salva Kiir in an attempt to salvage the talks.
One observer at the talks, who declined to be identified, told Rooters the negotiations were expected to reconvene in Addis Ababa at the end of October and that former South African President Thabo Mbeki had offered to mediate.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had urged Khartoum to come to the talks prepared to negotiate. The B.O. regime's special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, participated in the talks.
At the same time as the Abyei plebiscite, there will also be a referendum on whether south Sudan should secede from the north. That vote is widely expected to bring about Africa's newest country, a development opposed by Khartoum.
Referendum on Abyei
Talks between north and south Sudan over the future of the oil-producing Abyei region, a key hurdle ahead of January referendums in the country, have failed, the head of the southern delegation said on Tuesday.
Sudan is about three months away from the scheduled start of the vote on whether Abyei should join north or south Sudan -- a plebiscite promised as part of the 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south civil war.
"This round has failed," said Pagan Amum, secretary-general of the south's ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Delegates in Addis Ababa told Rooters one possible solution to the impasse was to forego the referendum on Abyei and divide its territory between the north and the south.
But delegates said the teams were unable to agree on border demarcation and what would qualify as Abyei citizenship. The SPLM says the Khartoum government is settling thousands of Missiriya, a tribe from central Sudan, in northern Abyei to influence the vote.
The Khartoum government denies this.
In a sign of mounting tension, south Sudan's army told Rooters four northern soldiers walked into the center of Abyei town on Monday evening and started shooting randomly in the air, slightly injuring one trader.
An international source in Abyei confirmed gunshots were heard in the town but said it was unclear who was shooting or for what reason. No one was immediately available for comment from the northern army.
"They (the four northern soldiers) were clearly trying to provoke the situation to start fighting," southern army front man Kuol Deim Kuol said on Tuesday. "The plan failed because our officers managed to constrain our soldiers not to fire back."
Abyei town is patrolled by a Joint Integrated Unit made up of northern and southern soldiers set up under the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement between north and south. Kuol said the four soldiers came from the northern part of the joint unit.
Northern and southern leaders have accused each other of building up forces north and south of the Abyei area.