Sudan peace hopes gain impetus from talks in Kenya

By William Wallis, Financial Times

NAIVASHA, Oct 17, 2003 — John Garang, the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), and Ali Othman Taha, vice-president in the Khartoum government, arrived in Kenya yesterday to take charge of a critical phase in US-backed peace talks.

Samson Kwaje, SPLM spokesman, said the two sides were “65 per cent of the way” towards a settlement of Africa’s longest civil war. Most contentious issues, however, had been left for the two leaders to work out, he said.

Among western diplomats and regional negotiators hopes for peace in Sudan have been fuelled by a change in the chemistry of negotiations. “For the first time they are talking to each other face to face, with an apparent will to overcome the obstacles,” said an official close to General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, the Kenyan mediator.

One of Mr Garang’s advisers is Mansour Khaled, a former foreign minister in Khartoum and one of the first northern Muslims to join the southern, mostly Christian and animist rebel movement. He described the negotiations as “the first time since independence that we are discussing the major issues”.

The mission entails in effect the recreation of Africa’s largest country, torn apart by 20 years of fighting in which 1.5m people are thought to have died. Analysts say it will also require the participation at some point of regional groups so far excluded from the talks.

Recent discussions have centred on the make-up of a national unity government and its financial relations with a separate southern administration: Sudan produces more than 250,000 barrels a day of oil, most of which is in the south but controlled by the north.

Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, Kenya’s foreign minister, told the FT he expected “some very quick movement” on these issues.

SPLM delegates were buoyed by a breakthrough last month when the Islamist government agreed to their demand for a separate army in the south for six years, leading to a referendum on southern independence. They are now pushing for a separate central bank and currency.

But delegates said the trickiest issue was the status of three areas that have also fought the Islamist government in Khartoum but whose geographical and religious status is disputed.

“Any agreement will hinge on the issue of the three areas. They have been fighting with us. They are our comrades. So we can’t let them go,” Mr Kwaje said.