US Seeks To Split Sudan: Egyptian Press

the agreement came as the discovery of petroleum in southern Sudan attracted the interests of Americans and Europeans

Additional Reporting by Khaled Baraket, IOL Staff

CAIRO, August 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Egyptian press accused the United States Saturday, August 3, of working for the secession of south Sudan by overriding a three-year-old Arab initiative to end the country's 19-year civil war in favor of its own.

"The major objective of the United States is to eliminate the Egyptian-Libyan influence and to abort their initiative and to separate the south of Sudan from the north on any basis," columnist Salama Ahmed Salama wrote in Al-Ahram daily.

He attributed the policy to "the discovery of petroleum in [southern] Sudan [which] attracted the interests of Americans and Europeans."

Salama slammed Washington for excluding Cairo from peace talks in Kenya between Khartoum and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army which led to a breakthrough agreement late last month, despite its own efforts to sponsor a settlement since 1999.

"Egypt should have participated. Instead, Egypt was completely excluded because of American pressure," the columnist wrote of the Kenyan talks held under the aegis of a regional grouping of east African states.

The protocol signed in Nairobi between Khartoum and the SPLA grants the south a six-year period of administrative autonomy, at the end of which the mainly animist and Christian south will decide in a referendum if they wish to remain part of Sudan or secede.

After the signing of the accord, Egypt reaffirmed its opposition to any partition of the south.

Egypt fears the creation of a new state will increase competition for the waters of the Nile as well as make it easier for Islamists to dominate northern Sudan, diplomats and analysts say.

For his part, Sudan's presidential peace adviser Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani said in an interview published Saturday that Khartoum would work to develop the south in order to preserve the unity of the country.

"The government has plans for development projects in the south and we will enter into a race against time... to modernize the south and preserve the unity of the country," Atabani told the Egyptian Al-Akhbar daily.

"We call on our brothers in Egypt and in the Arab world to assure us the necessary aid and support," he said.

Among the grievances of the SPLA, which has fought a series of Khartoum-based governments since 1983, is the lack of resources devoted to the south.

The war and related famine have killed up to 1.5 million people and displaced more than four million others, aid workers say.

Egypt insists on a united Sudan not only because of Egypt’s strategic interests, but also because dividing Sudan will lead to more fractions within the country itself because the leaderships in the south are not able to deal with the south as one entity, said Mohamed Abou El Fadl, specialist researcher in the Sudanese affairs.

“Moreover, there is no guarantee that in case of division, there will be development and stability, especially that the south is divided into many quarrelling tribes” he added in an interview with IslamOnline.

In case the division took place, these tribes will go into fierce fights, which will lead to more destruction to Sudan and maybe more divisions within the south itself, he added.

“The U.S. role is extremely controversial and weird,” he said, adding that the U.S. envoy to the region in April 2002 said in his report that the U.S. does not prefer the division of Sudan and he thanked Egypt for its role in the Sudanese problem,” he said.

This totally contradicts with the American hidden role in the recent accord signed between the two parties, he added.

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