Sudan's southern rebels are planning to introduce their own currency, reports say, in the latest manoeuvring following recent peace talks.

According to Uganda's state-owned New Vision newspaper, the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement has started putting up posters showing designs for the "New Sudan Pound", to supplant the Sudanese dinar.

The new currency will go into circulation in January despite protests from the government in Khartoum, the paper says.

But experts believe that the announcement may be a bargaining ploy - and would be largely symbolic even if notes actually enter circulation.

North vs South

The SPLM is the political arm of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, the group which has been fighting Sudanese government forces for two decades.

The fight is over control of the mainly Christian south of the country, which the rebels see as exploited and victimised by the predominantly Muslim government in Khartoum in the north.

Although peace talks in Kenya ended last month without a comprehensive settlement, a truce between the two sides has been extended till 31 March 2003 to allow for further negotiations.

Between now and then, both sides are jockeying for position.

The SPLA/M wants any deal to remove the possibility of applying Islamic Sharia law to the south - one of the key sticking points between the sides.

Ideally, it is looking for complete autonomy.

And the dinar is seen by some in the SPLA/M as a hostage to what they believe to be an antiquated Islamic financial system.

Rhetoric

But launching a currency - the New Vision said a central bank is being planned at the town of Yei, with Ugandan businessmen already contracted to print the notes - is more a statement of intent than a practical move, experts believe.

The south of Sudan has no infrastructure to speak of, so ensuring the currency's use across the zone the SPLA/M controls would be difficult.

The move could be interpreted as the equivalent of printing sets of stamps to imbue a disputed territory with the trappings of sovereignty.

In any case, the dinar has already been widely supplanted in the south by the Ugandan and Kenyan shilling and - of course - the US dollar.