20100109

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan on Saturday dismissed warnings from aid groups and activists that it was sliding back to war, as it marked the fifth anniversary of a faltering peace deal with the south and prepared for two divisive votes.

Drummers from Radiohead, Pink Floyd and other bands appeared in a "beat for peace" film to mark Saturday's anniversary, part of global events urging world powers to help prevent more bloodshed in the oil-producing state.

Sudan ended more than two decades of north-south civil war with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, but relations between the two sides have remained tense.

Aid groups and campaigners issued a series of reports in recent days warning there was a risk of fresh conflict as Sudan counted down the days to national elections in April and a referendum on whether the south should split off as an independent country, due in January 2011.

"The situation in southern Sudan is very far from what has been depicted...It is not all doom and gloom," Anne Itto, a senior member of the south's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) told reporters.

Itto, speaking in the southern capital Juba, said the campaigners had failed to take into account significant improvements and development in the five years since the accord.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement a report "from some foreign organisations...that the north and the south are doomed to go back to war, was not correct and was not backed by facts on the ground".

There was a need to tighten security in the south, ministry spokesman Moawia Osman Khalid told the state Suna news agency.