Sudan's former Southern rebels threatened Friday to seek third-party arbitration in their dispute with the ruling party over the line-up of their much-delayed national unity government. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) warned it may request the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) intervene in a bid to settle the dispute holding up the formation of the Cabinet. IGAD, a grouping of eastern and central African states, was the main driving force behind a January 9 peace deal which ended more than two decades of North-South conflict in Sudan that left some two million people dead and four million displaced.The peace agreement set power-sharing quotas to guide the formation of the national unity government. But the SPLM and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) have been locked in acrimonious talks over the distribution of economic portfolios, especially the Energy Ministry. "That has been the obstacle," senior SPLM official Pagan Amun said. "We are working intensively to overcome it."
The government was due to have been in place by August 9, but its formation was also disrupted by the death in a July 30 helicopter crash of Southern leader and First Vice President John Garang. Amun said his group has presented a number of proposals to the NCP on how to resolve the dispute and was awaiting an answer. "If the alternatives that are being presented (are rejected), we will have no choice but to go not only to the IGAD but to the international community," he warned. The SPLM official added that Garang's successor Salva Kiir would hold further talks with President Omar al-Bashir in a last-ditch effort to break the deadlock. Both sides want the crucial Energy Ministry to control oil resources. Sudan's crude output is expected to reach 500,000 barrels per day by the end of the year.
Khartoum has admitted that another factor delaying the unity government had been difficulties in persuading the exiled opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to come on board. The NDA said it was prepared to accept the handful of seats offered to them in the National Assembly (Parliament), but wanted better representation in government.