Rebel leader calls Sudanese president to celebrate security deal
By Mohamed Ali Saeed
KHARTOUM, Sept 25 (AFP) — Sudanese rebel leader John Garang telephoned President Omar el-Beshir to celebrate a security accord marking another step toward ending a 20-year-old civil war, it was reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, opposition parties here which had complained about being excluded from the peace talks in Kenya either gave the deal a lukewarm welcome or predicted it would fail in the long-term because they allege it lacked widespread support.
In the phone call late Wednesday, Garang, head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), expressed his “extreme delight” with a deal he said had removed the most difficult obstacle to peace, state-run and other media reported.
Radio Omdurman, Sudan Television and newspapers respectfully called him “Colonel Garang” in reporting the first telephone conversation between the two foes since they held their first face-to-face meeting in Kampala in July 2002.
The rebel movement is willing to “pay bills of peace which has become a national demand and a pure national concern,” Garang was quoted as telling Beshir.
Beshir was quoted as thanking Garang for the telephone call and also congratulating him on the accord. He also said he hoped the talks would culminate in a final and comprehensive agreement.
The government and SPLA formally signed the agreement on security and military issues Thursday.
The deal which lays out the positions and strengths of the government and rebel forces was reached Wednesday after three weeks of talks between Garang and Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha.
However, was later quoted as stressing that his most important concern was unity, particularly since his government has accepted the south’s right to self-determination.
Beshir said that “the risk of accepting the self-determination principle makes unity of the country as the main issue,” Beshir was cited as saying by Information Minister Al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik as telling a meeting of the Council of Ministers.
Sudan’s north-south civil war dates back to the 19th century and beyond. Its latest phase began when the SPLA took up arms in 1983. Since then, more than 1.5 million people have been killed and four million displaced.
The war takes place against a background of domination of the mainly black African, animist or Christian south by the Arab, Islamic north, but has become increasingly driven by a fight for control of natural resources, notably oil.
Some opposition political parties here welcomed the deal, but others complained they were excluded from negotiations which are taking place only between the government and the main rebel force.
“We and the entire Sudanese people do not know what has been achieved and what is going on in the negotiations… ,” Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Politburo chairman Ali Mahmoud Hassanain said.
He told AFP that his party could not render a verdict on a deal “we know nothing about” and predicted it would be shortlived because the Sudanese people had not had a hand in forging it.
“The agreement is a deal between two parties rather than a settlement to the question of peace,” Hassanain said.
The opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) said it supported the agreement, but demanded more transparency in the process.
“We are for any agreement that halts the bleeding and stops the fighting and leads to peace,” PCP acting secretary general Abdallah Hassan Ahmed told AFP.
Ahmed called for “the northern and southern political forces that are not taking part in the talks (to) be informed of any future deals that determine the country’s future.”
He said any peace-related deals, starting with the ceasefire and security arrangements, should lead to greater freedom, including lifting the state of emergency under which many politicians have been arrested.
He also called for the release of political detainees, including Hassan al-Turabi, Beshir’s erstwhile Islamist ally who helped him seize power in a 1989 military coup. The two split after a power struggle in 1999.