President Wade’s nearly-completed monument, a 50-metre bronze statue of a man, woman and a child, is perched on a hill looking out over the Atlantic and is meant to symbolise Africa’s liberation from “centuries of ignorance, intolerance and racism”. Photo/FILE

He hopes that the statue will attract more tourists to the country but many Senegalese feel the money could be better spent. The statue, intended to symbolise the fight against racism, was Mr Wade’s idea and he says he will personally take 35 per cent of the revenue it generates, with the rest going to the state.

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List makers showed distaste for tweeting, retweeting and tweetaholics, lingo made popular by users of the Twitter networking website. Photo/FILE

Rounding out the list,–“czar”, as in drug czar, car czar, housing czar or banished word czar. “Purging our language of ‘toxic assets’ is a ‘stimulus’ effort that is ‘too big to fail,’” said a university spokesman.

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Photo: Peter Martell/IRIN

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NAIROBI,  – The peace agreement which ended years of war between north and south Sudan could unravel unless immediate steps are taken to salvage it, two key former diplomats say.

“Today, five years after the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between North and South Sudan, there is a real threat of an all-out war returning to Sudan and still no permanent resolution to the Darfur conflict,” Lt-Gen Lazarus Sumbeiywo and John Danforth warned.

Sumbeiywo was chief mediator at the peace talks between Sudanese parties in the central Kenyan town of Naivasha. Danforth was US envoy for peace in Sudan.

Five years after the signing of the CPA, the former diplomats wrote in Kenya’s EastAfrican newspaper that crucial provisions have not been implemented. Conditions across the country had also deteriorated.

“Unless international support is dramatically increased to help North and South Sudan agree on the foundations of their future, we fear the [April 2010] elections and [2011] referendum may throw the country back into massive war,” they said.

On Darfur, they said violence had increased yet the root causes of the conflict had not been addressed. “The situation in Eastern Sudan and the three transitional areas of Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile remains volatile as well.”

Last week, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said Washington was concerned about the flow of arms, including heavy weapons, into southern Sudan. Her government, Rice added, believed the arms were coming from northern Sudan and neighbouring countries. The Sudanese government denied the allegations.

Upsurge in violence

On 30 January, African Union (AU) Commission Chairman Jean Ping described the situation as a powder keg.

“Is the war between north and south at risk of resuming despite what has been said?… Will the independence of Southern Sudan not lead other players in Darfur and in other places, which are currently not asking for independence, to seek independence as Southern Sudan will have done?” Ping asked on Radio France International.

“We have a feeling that we are sitting on a powder keg,” he added.

There has been a recent upsurge of violence in the south. For example, at least 140 people were killed and 90 wounded in a January attack on Wunchai Region of Warrap State.

Aid agencies say at least 2,500 people were killed in 2009 and 350,000 fled their homes, “a human toll greater than occurred last year in Darfur”.

In a recent statement, they warned of several possible flashpoints over the next 12 months including the presidential, legislative and local elections in April – the first in 24 years – and a referendum in early 2011 on whether Southern Sudan becomes independent.

Small Arms Survey report

A separate report by the Small Arms Survey on 15 December said Sudan’s future appeared increasingly precarious.

“Despite progress made in recent days, the peace process continues to lurch from one crisis to the next,” it noted. “Just three months ago the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) predicted a 50 percent chance of a return to war with President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP).”

It said obstacles to progress on talks on Darfur were many: Major armed groups remain splintered and the Arab militias were increasingly disenchanted.

“In parallel with these troubling developments, the demand for small arms and light weapons – and some larger conventional weapons systems – among government forces, insurgents, and unaligned groups in the country has grown considerably,” the survey said.

Arms imports and internal transfers had continued despite a UN embargo and other multilateral restrictions designed to prevent weapons from reaching some Sudanese actors and areas. The presence of 25,000 international peacekeepers had also not helped, it said.

On 29 January, Amnesty International warned that the elections could lead to a deterioration of the human rights situation across the country and an upsurge of armed conflict, particularly in Darfur and the south.

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Photo: Sagar Shrestha/IRIN

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KATHMANDU,  – Nepalese political parties and the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) need to work harder on the ongoing peace process, experts say.

“The political parties and UNMIN have a very tight deadline,” Rhoderick Chalmers, senior analyst and South Asia deputy project director of the International Crisis Group, told IRIN in Kathmandu.

“They need to work more pro-actively… The peace process is being delayed,” Mohan Manandhar, a local analyst and senior adviser to the independent Kathmandu-based Organization Development Centre (ODC), said.

Established as a special political mission in 2007 to support the peace process in Nepal, UNMIN’s mandate includes the monitoring of the management of arms and armed personnel of the Nepal Army and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M), which is now the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) and currently the main opposition party.

On 22 January, the UN Security Council extended UNMIN’s mandate for another four months, but it will conclude in May, at the same time as the interim constitution expires, leaving political parties little time to draft a new constitution.

More than three years have passed since the Maoists signed a peace deal with Nepal’s multiparty government in 2006, ending a bloody decade-long conflict which claimed the lives of more than 12,000.

Although some level of dialogue and communication between the major parties has been maintained, to date there has been no agreement on critical issues, including the integration and rehabilitation of Maoist army personnel, the democratization of the Nepal Army and the scope of presidential authority, says the latest report of the UN Secretary General.

UNMIN was given a limited mandate – a focused mission of limited duration. `Go in, do a particular task and leave’ was the idea. It didn’t turn out to be as simple a task as that.

“The tensions, deep differences and mistrust among the parties… have persisted,” the report said.

Blame game

But while civilians and analysts blame politicians for the delays, politicians prefer to point the finger at UNMIN.

“Although UNMIN’s role is still very important in the current peace process, unfortunately, it has failed to play its part as we had expected,” Prakash Jwala, politburo member and senior leader of the United Marxist Leninist (UML), the largest party in the country’s 22-party coalition government, said.

“We’ve seen the Maoists walking out of the cantonments with their guns. The soldiers were also involved in criminal activities, but UNMIN seemed less critical about this,” said Ramesh Lekhak, a senior leader and central member of the Nepali Congress (NC), another major party.

Meanwhile, Maoist leaders say the most critical issue – the integration and future of the former Maoist army – remains unresolved.

“UNMIN has very little time. Who will mediate if it leaves without resolving this most important part of the peace process?” Lekhraj Bhatt, a senior UCPN-M leader, warned.

Photo: Naresh Newar/IRIN

There are misunderstandings about the limits of UNMIN’s monitoring role, says UNMIN chief Karin Landgren

Bhatt is concerned that the Nepal Army and the Ministry of Defence are already opposing the Security Sector Reform (SSR), which was supposed to reform and democratize the current Nepal Army, formerly known as Royal Nepal Army (RNA).

According to the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA), the SSR is the core element of the CPA and Maoists want the two armies to be united to form a new national army.

“Unless this happens, the peace process would remain incomplete and UNMIN’s role will also be half accomplished,” Bhatt said.

UNMIN responds

But despite the criticism, UNMIN says much of the process lies in the hands of the Nepalese themselves.

“We constantly face expectations that we should do more to support the process overall but this is a Nepali-driven peace process. We support that process and encourage it,” Karin Landgren, representative of the UN Secretary-General to Nepal and head of UNMIN, told IRIN.

“UNMIN was given a limited mandate – a focused mission of limited duration. `Go in, do a particular task and leave’ was the idea. It didn’t turn out to be as simple a task as that,” she said.

“There is a tendency, whenever someone is outside a cantonment to say: How did UNMIN let that happen? But UNMIN is not enforcing the movement of the Maoists or controlling them. All these arrangements depend on a high degree of trust between the parties,” she said, pointing out that UNMIN had a limited monitoring role.

In the absence of a final plan for the rehabilitation and reintegration of Maoist soldiers, it is very hard for UNMIN to work out how it is going to have an orderly exit, she explained.

“What is most urgent for us is that parties get on with the plan, share it with us, and then we look at where are the points – where are the benchmarks – that really enable us to say that we can now draw down.”

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