Hopes rise for deal to end Africa’s longest civil war
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Oct 09, 2003 (PANA) — A fresh round of the Sudanese peace talks is underway in Naivasha, Kenya amid fresh optimism that an agreement to end Africa’s longest civil war could be reached before the year runs out.
Prior to the resumption of the talks last Tuesday, Sudanese vice president Ali Osman Mohammed Taha and John Garang, leader of the separatist Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) were upbeat about prospects this time around for a final settlement.
Taha, a Khartoum government hard-liner intimated in Cairo last week during a tour of Arab capitals that an agreement was possible “in a few weeks.”
Twenty years of fighting between the government in Khartoum and rebels in the south has resulted in the death of 2 million people and the displacement of four million more.
After a period of stalemate, the peace talks regained momentum last month when Osman Taha and Garang reached a compromise on one of the most contentious issues: security and military arrangements during an envisaged six-year power-sharingtransition period.
But observers remain concerned that the main drive for peace was coming from the US administration, which is thought to be in need of some foreign policy success story.
Washington lists Sudan as a State sponsor of terror but last weekend retired US General Carl Fulford arrived in Khartoum at the head of a security team to study how to monitor the new security arrangements.
There is also concern that the exclusion from the talks of other disaffected groups within Sudan could undermine whatever is achieved in Naivasha between the SPLM/A and the Khartoum government.
Under the terms of an initial deal reached last year at Machakos (another Kenyan town), inhabitants of the largely Christian and animist south would vote at the end of a six-year transition on whether to remain within a united Sudan or secede from the Arab- influenced and mostly Muslim north.
The latest agreement went further, as Khartoum agreed to withdraw all but 12,000 of its troops from the south. The SPLM will maintain a separate army while contributing towards a new national force.
Still, several potential stumbling blocks remain, including the division of power and wealth, notably oil reserves, and the religious status of the capital, Khartoum.
Sudan produces 300,000 barrels of crude per day from fields in the centre of the country near the front line with the SPLM/A, but experts say it has the potential for a much higher output.
The SPLM/A is pushing for 60 percent of oil revenues and 40 percent of government jobs during the interim period.
General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, the Kenyan mediator at the talks, said these issues would be studied at committee level over the next week, paving the way for another meeting between Garang and Taha.