PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR GHAZI SALAHUDDIN OFFERS HIS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 000562 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC FOR SR AF DIRECTOR COURVILLE E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/06/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREL EPET PINS PINR SU SUBJECT: PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR GHAZI SALAHUDDIN OFFERS HIS VIEWS Classified By: CG REWhitehead, Reason: Section 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (SBU) Summary: CG Juba met with Presidential Advisor Ghazi Salahuddin on March 4 to review, inter alia, CPA implementation issues. Ghazi discussed internal dynamics in the Government of National Unity (GNU),the SPLM's role in the GNU, progress on the division of petroleum revenues, Abyei, and SPLM accusations of northern support of the LRA. End summary. -------------- CPA Implementation -------------- ¶2. (C) Ghazi said Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) implementation has not progressed as smoothly as it might have, but that he believed that most contentions could be worked out. He admitted that Darfur has created a major distraction for all involved in the CPA process. Ghazi commented that there was a growing sentiment in the North, and among National Congress Party (NCP) supporters, that the secession of the South might not be an undesirable outcome. There was growing "peace of mind" on issues pertaining to the South, especially in regards to the likely regional and ethnic turmoil that he believed were bound to erupt in the South. He added that most northerners were far more concerned with uncertainties prevailing in the North. Nonetheless, he personally believed that secession would be a mistake. -------------- Internal Dynamics -------------- ¶3. (C) Ghazi discounted current rumors that the influence of Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha was in decline. He said that the relationship between Taha and President Bashir was unchanged. Taha realized his moment of triumph with the CPA, but naturally Bashir moved more to the forefront with the establishment of the GNU. He said that Taha had withdrawn himself somewhat from his role as de facto prime minister, and that disarray in government was the result. Bashir remained withdrawn/indecisive on most matters, and, in fact, no one was playing the necessary coordinating role. Ghazi said that he had strongly pushed against elements in the GNU who wished to use the NCP majority to impose outcomes on the SPLM. He had prevailed on Bashir, much to Taha's chagrin, to withdraw three presidential decrees that had inflamed the opinion of the SPLM. Ghazi thought that the NCP majority was 
best used as a shield rather than a sword, blocking unacceptable SPLM initiatives, but not forcing equally polarizing NCP positions on its putative partner in government. -------------- SPLM's Role -------------- ¶4. (C) He expressed concern that the SPLM was not doing its part to make the GNU work. He said that Salva Kiir has begun to take his role as First Vice President more serQusly, but nonetheless remained preoccupied with the South at the expense of the GNU. He described Kiir's November visit to Washington as a fiasco, especially what he characterized as "a fumbling" message on U.S. sanctions on Sudan. Ghazi was also critical of some of Rebecca Garang's comments about CPA implementation during her visit to the U.S., a statement that he felt obscured steady progress and cast the North/South relationship in inaccurately negative terms. He said that Government of Southern Sudan Vice President Riek Machaar's statements about SPLM indifference to shifting the AMIS mandate in Darfur to the UN represented another misstep: in the National Assembly, the SPLM had clearly stated that it favored a policy of maintaining the AU presence in Darfur. (Note: Three SPLM MPs subsequently told CG that this was not necessarily so, and sprang from a misinterpretation of comments on UNSCR 1593 made in the Assembly by SPLM Party Chair Yassir Arman. End note.) -------------- Petroluem Revenues -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Ghazi said that there had been good progress on demystifying the controversial partition of petroleum receipts. He said that a meeting scheduled for the evening of March 4 was expected to clarify the situation. The GNU had provided figures showing that all but thirteen percent of revenues had been deposited in the Government of Southern KHARTOUM 00000562 002 OF 002 Sudan (GoSS) account, and the balance would be paid. The real issue, he stressed, was what the GoSS had done with the other 87 percent. CG suggested that both sides might consider a neutral mechanism of some description to monitor contracts/receipts and thus avoid future confusion on the revenue split. Ghazi observed that, if a joint mechanism saQsfactory to both sides could not be worked out, this might be an interesting alternative. -------------- Abyei -------------- ¶6. (C) He cauQoned thatQbyei remains the single greatest threat to implementation of the CPA. He said that the acceptance of the 1905 Dinka Ngok chieftancy formula, and what he saw as the Abyei Boundaries Commission's overreach, as mistakes, but "ones that we have to live with." Ghazi said that the upcoming Missiriya transhumance passage into Abyei would be a critical period. -------------- No Ties to LRA -------------- ¶7. (C) CG noted that outside of the issue of petroleum revenues, the perception in the South that the North continued to support that LRA was the most emotive issue. Ghazi said that the GNU did not support the LRA and had been surprised by public accusations from the GoSS/SPLM that support continued. He did not see any policy other than continued denial that this was true. WHITEHEAD