The low-intensity conflict between the government and
the Eastern Front risks becoming a major new war with
disastrous humanitarian consequences if the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) proceeds with
its scheduled withdrawal from eastern Sudan this month.
Competition to fill the security vacuum could spark urban
unrest, reprisals and worse. Yet, there is also a peace
opportunity. As a partner in the new Government of
National Unity and with troops in the East, the SPLM is in
a position to broker a deal. Like Darfur and the South, the
East suffers from marginalisation and underdevelopment:
legitimate claims for more power and wealth sharing in
a federal arrangement should be addressed within the
framework of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
(CPA) the government and SPLM signed in 2005. But
the SPLM needs to push for a provisional ceasefire and
use its influence in Khartoum to get serious negotiations.
International partners, under UN leadership, should
facilitate the process.
The CPA has brought no peace dividend to either eastern
Sudan or the Darfur region of western Sudan. It dealt with
the political and economic marginalisation of the South
but ignored the similar structural imbalance in the rest
of the country. The ruling National Congress Party (NCP)
and the international community are now bearing the
consequences of excluding other participants from the
long negotiations that were conducted at Naivasha in
Kenya. After hundreds of thousands of deaths and the
displacement of millions in Darfur, the international
community is trying to salvage a peace in negotiations
conducted under African Union sponsorship at Abuja.
At the same time, however, it may be in the process of
repeating its mistake by largely ignoring another powder
keg.
Under the terms of the CPA, the SPLM is obliged
