KHARTOUM: The seizure of a shipload of tanks that many believe were destined for south Sudan has put a spotlight on a build-up of arms in Africa’s largest country by the sides that signed a peace deal in 2005.

Diplomatic sources and campaigners say both the northern based government and southern former rebels are covertly stockpiling weapons in fear that flashpoint events in coming years could plunge them back into conflict.

“It is absolutely clear that both sides are recruiting and re-arming. This is undisputed,” said Robert Muggah, research director from the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey.

The rules of the north-south peace deal ban either side from replenishing arms or ammunition without the approval of their Joint Defence Board, but experts say that is being flouted.

Both north and south Sudan regularly deny they are building up their armies or breaking the terms of the peace agreement.

But diplomats, the US navy, a maritime agency and the pirates who seized the cargo of Ukrainian tanks off Somalia last month believe they were headed for south Sudan via Kenya despite the denials of south Sudanese and Kenyan authorities.

Kenya has said the tanks were destined for its army.

Whether the tanks were going to south Sudan or not, military experts said there were signs of at least two other deliveries of tanks to the south in recent months.

“They’re doing that because they know that north Sudan is also re-arming. The situation is very, very volatile,” said Fouad Hikmat, Horn of Africa director for the International Crisis Group.

A foreign security source said the southern SPLA army brought in at least 10 tanks from Ethiopia to the region of Kurmuk in Sudan’s remote southern Blue Nile State in early July.

A UN official in Khartoum said the southern army gave assurances they were old tanks that had gone for maintenance but had not given registration numbers so that could be confirmed.A number of disassembled tanks also came into Kenya’s Mombasa port in November, before being brought to Sudan, said Thoko Kaime, of London-based Exclusive Analysis.

“Nobody wants to start a war,” said a source close to the south’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), speaking on condition of anonymity.

“But the south is building up its army as a show of strength to act as a deterrent ... There’s a big concern. Most people (in the south) think that the north will try to cause problems...The issue of trust is not there.”

Relations between north and south Sudan have remained strained since the 2005 deal and troops have clashed, most recently in May, over the oil-producing region of Abyei that is claimed by both sides.

Other possible points of friction on the horizon include a ruling on Abyei’s future, the results of a census that are likely to be contested, elections due next year and a referendum scheduled for 2011 on whether the south can secede.

There are no global embargoes to prevent north and south Sudan maintaining armies. The only world-wide arms embargo in force in Sudan covers the government and armed groups in the separate Darfur conflict.

“Khartoum has been building up its arms quite a lot recently. It has been buying its equipment from Ukraine. It has been buying lots of Russian-originated arms,” said Gill Lusk, from the London-based Africa Confidential newsletter.

“It has been buying fighter planes in the last couple of years.”

She also pointed to two military cooperation deals that Khartoum had signed with Iran in the past year.

Sudan’s army has said it is now self-sufficient in conventional weapons, has begun building unmanned surveillance planes, and is developing missiles. A rise in oil prices and output has helped the government build up its arsenal.

There are no signs that north-south conflict is imminent.

Both sides calmed tensions over Abyei and showed some unity over a Darfur rebel attack on Khartoum in May and in opposing efforts by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to try President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes in Darfur.

Longer term, the problems are far from resolved however.

“I don’t think the south wants to attack the north. But I think they know the north will attack them at some point,” said Lusk. “The northern government doesn’t want the south to secede. It wants the oil. It wants its springboard into Africa.”

Because both sides know they are breaking the terms of their peace deal when it comes to rearming, they may be cautious of drawing attention to each other’s breaches, insiders believe.

Britain, the United States and other Western powers who also backed the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Deal are also keen to see it succeed and could be reluctant to draw too much attention to signs of it fraying.

A senior diplomatic source in Khartoum said one reason for the relative silence was because the risks of a complete fall-out between the north and south were too high.—Reuters