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Sudan

My Lords, first, I crave the indulgence of your Lordships, for I have very little voice. I hope that by the electronic wizardry before us noble Lords will be able to hear what I have to say on this important matter. The comprehensive peace agreement signed in 2005 between the north and south put an end to the civil war that had left nearly 2 million dead since 1983. It gave the Sudanese nation an opportunity for what was referred to as "attractive unity". The CPA laid out an interim period between 9 July 2005 and 8 July 2011 during which all citizens of the Sudan, both northerners and southerners, were to be afforded equal rights politically, legally, economically and religiously. In the comprehensive peace agreement, there are six protocols: a protocol setting out a transition process; a security arrangement agreement; a wealth sharing agreement; a power sharing agreement; a resolution process for the conflict in southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states and a resolution process for the conflict in Abyei area. If the CPA had been fully implemented from the outset, a peaceful, attractive unity might have had a chance in Sudan. But what has happened is that not one protocol has been fully implemented; and some are under discussion for less than full implementation. This stalling in the process means that unity between north and south is no longer an attractive goal—even if it were believed to be possible—especially to southern Sudanese. Crucial to the implementation of the CPA is the national census. On its basis constituencies will be decided, the internal border drawn, and any referendum about secession taken. Yet this census was conducted a year late in 2008 and the results, released in June this year, were rejected outright by the Government of Southern Sudan, all the state governors and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, following its claims that south Sudanese make up only 21 per cent of the population. SPLM officials have said that they estimate Southern Sudan to account for a third of Sudan's population and that they will not accept figures less than that. The 92 per cent increase in south Darfur's population is also considered fraudulent. The national general elections, which were to give Sudan a chance to see what a democratic and united Sudan could look like, were to have been conducted by the end of 2008. These have now been postponed twice and are due to be held in April 2010. If the elections fail to occur in a manner acceptable to all parties, the possibility of a peaceful referendum process becomes even more unlikely. The referendum Bill, which will govern the process whereby southern Sudanese are to exercise their right of self-determination under the CPA, was supposed to be enacted by 9 July last year, along with those to govern the popular consultations in the Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile, as well as the Abyei area referendum. But these Bills have not been promulgated to date and indeed agreement has still not been reached over the major referendum, with the south now rejecting the two-thirds quorum agreed with the north by its own negotiator on the grounds that that is too high a percentage to expect for such an underdeveloped region. If no deal is reached before the parliament closes its current and last session before Christmas, there will be no legal basis for the referendum until after the elections next year, when a differently constituted parliament in Khartoum may come to a different decision. A further source of deterioration of trust between the north and south is that the northern Government have not been transparent with the national oil revenue figures, of which a vast amount has gone to the northern Sudan. Consequently, there is a widespread lack of confidence, signalled by the SPLM parliamentary bloc walking out of parliament for an indefinite period. It is now evident, according to a statement last month by the leaders of all the churches in Sudan, that the vast majority of the southern Sudanese people no longer trust any talk of confederation or attractive unity and want an independent Southern Sudan. The six years given to prepare for the referendum have now been whittled down to just 14 months. The time to make unity attractive is fast running out. Meanwhile there are significant crises in Southern Sudan: a surge of ethnic clashes in the south have killed more than 1,200 people this year, many of them women and children. According to the UN, the rate of violent deaths in the south now surpasses that in Darfur. Recently, the UN deputy resident co-ordinator in Southern Sudan said that more than 2,000 people had died and 250,000 had been displaced by inter-ethnic violence across the region this year alone. Much of the recent violence has taken place in Jonglei, Unity and Lakes states, which are on what the south sees as its border with the north, if voters were to choose independence in 2011. The Archdeacon of Wernyol was shot dead during a church service and Archbishop Daniel visited a village an hour out of Bor on Good Friday this year to pray where 40 people had been shot on Palm Sunday, five days previously. The Church leaders of all denominations believe that these are not isolated incidents, but a co-ordinated campaign to destabilise the south in the run-up to the elections and the referendum. Nor has the UN peacekeeping force been effective: during the violence in Ezo, there were calls for UNMIS troops to be sent. The response was to send a planeload of Bangladeshi troops from Juba to Yambio, a day's journey from Ezo, and back again the same day, according to the UNHAS-WFP manifest. In the first half of this year in Ezo, Western Equatorial State, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) attacked the town and the county commissioner's headquarters, killing tens and displacing thousands. None the less, John, the Bishop of Ezo, has pushed ahead with his school-building programme, gaining with the DfID funders a significant reputation for the Episcopal Church in Sudan, as almost the only body that sticks with people when other NGOs have pulled back to Yambio. On 20 September, Duk Padiet village in Twich was attacked and at least 167 people were killed, and many more wounded. In Bentiu, fighting has recently broken out between rival factions of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, and between rival factions of the Joint Integrated Unit in Malakal. UNMIS, the Government of Southern Sudan and the SPLA are seemingly unable to protect their own population from attacks by other southern Sudanese. Indeed the SPLA has recently attacked UN peacekeepers. The escalation of this destabilising violence, specifically targeting civilians and the Government, will make registration and voting in the elections and referendum very difficult if not impossible. There are also grave UN-African Union concerns at the build-up of rebel and government forces in north Darfur, which might signal a new cycle of fighting in that area also. Military forces in north and south Sudan are engaged in an arms race that risks plunging the nation back into civil war. Church leaders and the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey report significant rearming of northern and southern troops and militias. The report said that China and Iran continued to be the main source of weapons, adding that the SPLA had been stockpiling light and heavy weapons, mostly from Ukraine, for the past two years, including Soviet-era T-72 tanks and BM-21 multiple rocket launch systems. The situation in Sudan is very grave, yet there is no alternative on the table to the comprehensive peace agreement. In this brief debate, I call for further efforts by Her Majesty’s Government as a guarantor of the CPA to avert an unimaginable disaster among our friends and neighbours.