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Abstract

On 9 January 2005 the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Government of Sudan (GoS) signed a peace agreement called the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the conflict in southern Sudan that had been going on since 1983 and had resulted in at least 54 000 battle-related deaths. In total it is estimated that two million people have died during the war as a result of violence, famine and disease. The CPA was the final outcome of the so-called Machakos peace process which began in July 2002. Overall the implementation of this agreement is lacking in momentum. Some encouraging signs can be seen: a ceasefire that has held with just one major exception; the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to the South; an extensive redeployment of troops, the creation of a Government of National Unity (GoNU) and the instalment of the head of SPLM as First Vice President (FVP). However, other parts of the agreement have not been implemented: there is still no consensus on the contentious region of Abyei; several stipulated commissions have not yet been launched, and other commissions are not working properly. Another negative aspect is that despite wide redeployment of troops the first major deadline in the CPA was missed when the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) had not left the South by 9 July 2007 as stipulated in the agreement. The overall impression of the implementation process is negative and the foremost reason for this is the GoS's lack of will and SPLM's lack of capacity to properly implement the CPA.

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