Sudan's Endangered Peace Agreement Spurs Plan for Urgent Summit
WASHINGTON – African leaders plan to hold a summit to resolve Sudan's unraveling peace agreement, a Kenyan official announced Monday.
The summit is in response to the withdrawal of southern rebels from the unity government formed by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) as well as North Sudan's order to open military training camps, according to Agence France-Presse.
The 2005 accord ended a 21-year conflict in the south which resulted in 1.5 million deaths and four million displaced people. The war was one of Africa's longest lasting conflicts and most severe refugee crises.
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"They (regional African leaders) agreed that IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) countries should join hands and resolve the problems facing the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)," Lee Njiru, spokesman for retired Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi, told AFP.
"They agreed to plan an urgent summit to resolve the Sudanese crisis," he said.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir, who is also the first vice president of Sudan, pulled his Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement out of Khartoum in September on the basis that their northern counterpart failed to fulfill its part in the CPA agreement.
During a visit last week to the United States, Kiir noted that South Sudan remains committed to the successful implementation of the CPA, but true peace requires the same commitment from the National Congress Party in Khartoum as well as the international community.
"We need your support now more than ever before," Kiir told U.S. Christian leaders, according to Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse, which sponsored the briefing at which the president spoke.
Samaritan's Purse has worked in Sudan since 1993, helping hundreds of thousands of people through setting up hospitals, schools and distributing food and farm supplies. Franklin Graham, the president and CEO of the organization, has vowed to rebuild the over 500 churches that were systematically destroyed during the north-south civil war.
While Southern Sudan is mainly Christian and animist, the north is mostly Muslim.
During the briefing last week, the Sudanese leader thanked the U.S Christian community for its humanitarian aid and advocacy on behalf of South Sudan.
In addition to meeting with Christian leaders, Kiir also visited U.S. President George W. Bush to warn that the peace agreement was in danger of collapse.
At the moment, a date for the Sudan Peace Summit is yet to be announced. But both sides have pledged to refrain from war in the meantime despite growing tension.
