Financial Times

US urges Sudan's north and south to mend rift
By Barney Jopson in Nairobi
Published: January 12 2010 02:00 | Last updated: January 12 2010 02:00
The governments of north and south Sudan must act "now" and make crucial decisions on how they will live together if the south chooses independence in a referendum due next January, the US has said.
Scott Gration, the US special envoy to Sudan, told the Financial Times that the former rebels who govern the south and the Arab-led regime in Khartoum must resolve the potentially incendiary disputes between them.
"We have to come to grips with the sharing of resources, whether it's grazing rights, water rights or oil rights," he said in a telephone interview from Washington.
"We have to come to grips with the border. It has to be demarcated and delineated. We have to come to grips with citizenship, and the rights of people on both sides of the border. Those things need to be done now."
Sudan is entering a year of flashpoints and aid agencies warned last week that war between the north and south could reignite if the referendum on southern independence did not take place as planned.
 
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The governments of north and south Sudan must act “now” and make crucial decisions on how they will live together if the south chooses independence in a referendum due next January, the US has said.

Scott Gration, the US special envoy to Sudan, told the Financial Times that the former rebels who govern the south and the Arab-led regime in Khartoum must resolve the potentially incendiary disputes between them.

Continue reading here.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda is no neutral observer when it comes to the Democratic Republic of Congo. His attempts to mould events there have often exacerbated a conflict now in its 14th year.

Occasionally, though, Mr Kagame has a way of stating the obvious about his giant neighbour that shows up the failure of other would-be meddlers. There are two prerequisites, he remarked to me late last year, if peace is to be restored to the territory over which the Kinshasa government theoretically presides.

“If they could have a strong army, that would help them. But they should also have a political system that works. They need to have both ideally, but at least they should have one. To lack both is terrible!”

Despite hosting the most expensive United Nations mission ever undertaken in Africa, Congo is no closer today to having either.

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