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      • South Sudan army refuses to vacate oil-rich province

South Sudan army refuses to vacate oil-rich province

The army of the south Sudanese government is refusing to withdraw its forces from an area in southern Sudan unless the Khartoum government abides by a ruling saying that the province controls many oil fields.

 

"The north is refusing to implement the Abyei protocol," said Kuol Diem Kuol, spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). "Why should we be withdrawing our troops?"

 

SPLA is the armed wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which formed a national coalition government with the northerners after a peace deal in January 2005.

 

Control over oil fields

 

The agreement ended more than two decades of north-south civil war and ushered in a south Sudan regional government run by SPLM, with SPLA as its army.

 

One of the deal's key tasks was to demarcate borders of Abyei province, establishing control of its lucrative oil fields.

 

But the Khartoum government has rejected the findings of an Abyei Border Commission, welcomed by SPLM, on the grounds that the commission altered its mandate without consulting the presidency.

 

The commission ruled that many oil fields would fall inside the southern province. The peace deal also stipulated that SPLA forces were to redeploy from Abyei and two other "transitional" areas six months after the formation of integrated north-south military units.

 

But the integrated units - scheduled for deployment in April 2006 - have not been formed, and Kuol said SPLA would not redeploy from the South Kordofan State transitional area until the units had been set up.

 

 

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