Sudan’s first vice president stresses national unity

By TANALEE SMITH

KHARTOUM, Sudan, July 20, 2005 (AP) — The former rebel leader who ascended to Sudan’s vice presidency 10 days ago said Wednesday he wants to bring all opposition movements into the political process created by the country’s new power-sharing constitution.

First Vice President John Garang

“I came from the jungle; but Khartoum is different jungle and I’m getting to know it,” First Vice President John Garang told reporters at his first press conference since making a momentous arrival in Khartoum and being inaugurated to his post on July 9.

Smoothly switching between English and Arabic within the same sentence, Garang said he was working with President Omar al-Bashir and Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha on steps to further implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the long civil war with Garang’s southern rebels and paved the way for the unity government.

“We started reaching out to various political groups so that they’ll get involved in the CPA,” he said, referring to a meeting the day before with influential Islamist opposition leader Hassan Turabi that included discussions of including other groups in the government.

Turabi and others have complained that the CPA and the subsequent constitution favored southerners at the expense of other marginalized groups, including northern groups opposed to al-Bashir’s autocratic rule.

But Garang said the agreement promised complete inclusiveness.

“We want all the people of Sudan, all political forces to be involved in the implementation of the peace agreement,” Garang said. “It’s full of everything. It has a bill of rights, human rights, political rights, wealth sharing. It’s complete.”

“Nobody will be left out,” he said, repeatedly holding up a blue-bound copy of the CPA and urging people to read all 241 pages. “All Sudanese people should be involved in the implementation of the peace agreement, otherwise it will be only pieces of paper.”

Garang conceded that Sudan had to address the conflict in Darfur and tensions in the east before a real comprehensive peace could be realized and said he would borrow on his experiences negotiating peace for the south.

“I will do whatever is necessary to help them to achieve a just political settlement in Darfur and in eastern Sudan and bring them into the peace process,” he said.

Garang led the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in a 21-year civil war that ended in January with the signing of the CPA, which provided wealth and power sharing between the Khartoum government and Garang’s movement, including bringing him to the capital as first vice president.

The power-sharing government will be fully formed by Aug. 9.

Joking that Sudanese tended to tag along with others but never take the first step forward, Garang said this time they would work as partners “so we can take the south into a new era and make unity attractive, so in six years we will be a unified country.”

The constitution calls for a southern referendum on secession after six years but Garang has always supported unity, and urged all Sudanese to accept it.

“We are the midwives. We’ve delivered you a healthy baby,” he said of the CPA and the constitution. “We put it on you, the people of Sudan. You own it and you use it to empower yourselves.”