Southern Sudan could spark more conflict in the Great Lakes

Ros Wynne-Jones' article on southern Sudan was very welcome, since little media attention is given to the proposed indictment of President Omar al-Bashir, less to Darfur, and next to none to the situation in the south.

However, while she draws attention to the Chatham House report published on 16 January, warning that the collapse of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement may bring about a disaster in southern Sudan which would eclipse the genocide in Darfur, and while she draws attention to the plight of Abyei, her piece is strangely weak on the current desperate situation.

Since Christmas Eve, the Western Equatoria region of South Sudan has fallen victim to systematic attacks by the so-called Lord's Resistance Army, which has moved across the border from the Congo. Our diocese has been linked with the Episcopal Church of the Sudan for 35 years, allowing communications channels which have brought horrifying news from reliable eyewitnesses. On Christmas Day, LRA fighters killed 418 in the Congolese border town of Nabiapai and abducted 67 children, resulting in 6,000 Congolese refugees fleeing into the Ezo area of Sudan. The LRA followed them and carried out further attacks, making a further 7,000 homeless. Between then and 11 January alone, the LRA has killed 64 people (including infants) in the Maridi, Mundri and Lui districts, abducted 36 children, and made 16,000 homeless. Though south Sudanese government soldiers have been deployed, confidence has not returned, and an urgent appeal has been made by the church for immediate humanitarian assistance.

As yet there is no evidence that there is any support from the government in Khartoum for the LRA. Nevertheless this action, which we fear may continue, brings immediate destabilisation to the whole southern region and to the CPA.

What the Khartoum government does do is to refuse to honour the commitments it made in the CPA, principally: the demarcation of the north-south border, non-release of the results of the recent census with subsequent delay of the elections, and action to ensure fair distribution of wealth and resources across the whole country.

There is an opportunity to put questions to the government in the House of Lords on 11 February in order to elicit firmer support of the CPA and with the hope of a positive response to the current crisis in Western Equatoria, in which - when combined with the ongoing conflict in eastern Congo - lie the seeds of the wider conflict across the entire Great Lakes region of Africa that the UN warns against.

I urge more thorough and up-to-date coverage of events in the Sudan, indeed to prevent it being forgotten once again, but more indirectly in the hope of averting a catastrophe which will make Darfur pale into insignificance.
Rt Rev Dr David Stancliffe
Bishop of Salisbury

Source: The Guardian