Sudan rebel leader, Vice President to meet in Kenya to try to revive peace process
NAIROBI, Sept 4 (AFP) — Sudan rebel chief John Garang was on his way to the Kenyan town of Naivasha on Thursday for talks with Khartoum’s First Vice President Ali Osman Taha aimed at reviving the country’s faltering peace process and ending Africa’s longest civil war.
“I am going to the meeting with an open heart and mind in search of peace and justice for my people,” Garang, the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), told reporters as he arrived at the airport in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Talks between Khartoum and Garang’s southern-based rebels from the SPLM/A were suspended on August 23 after the government objected to a draft document unveiled by mediators, saying its implementation could ultimately lead to the secession of oil-rich southern Sudan.
Garang described his scheduled first meeting with Taha, who arrived in Kenya on Tuesday, as “important and critical”, saying it was intended to break the deadlock ahead of the resumption of substantive talks on September 10.
“We are going to Naivasha to save the process from collapsing,” said a statement by Garang read to reporters by SPLM/A spokesman Samson Kwaje.
“The parties have negotiated enough. Time has come for decision-making,” said Garang.
“I and my team are going to Naivasha ready and prepared to take tough decisions to bring just peace to Sudan,” he added.
“We expect Mr. Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and his delegation to have the courage to make the required decisions, to accept change and the inevitable transition to peace and democracy,” he added.
The last round of the talks between the Khartoum and the rebels in the central Kenyan town of Nanyuki focused on how to share power and resources during a six-year interim period of self-rule for southern Sudan.
During that round, Khartoum maintained its rejection of a draft final document unveiled by mediators from the east African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), charging that implementing the measures would lead to the south seceding.
Khartoum and the SPLM/A struck a breakthrough accord in July 2002 granting the south the right to self-determination after a six-year transition period and exempting this mainly Christian and animist region from Islamic laws practised in Khartoum.
The two parties have failed to agree on how to share executive, judicial and legislative power and on how to apportion revenues from oil and other natural resources, which occur in abundance in the south.
Khartoum has also rejected a proposal that both the government and the SPLM/A maintain separate armies during the transition period.
The government is also reluctant to suspend Islamic law in Khartoum during the transition period, during which mediators had proposed that the city serve as the joint capital.
Civil war erupted in Sudan in 1983 and has since claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced four million people.
Garang, meanwhile, welcomed the signing Thursday of a six-week ceasefire between the government and rebels from the western Darfur region, saying the truce was “a step in the right direction”.