Sudan Islamist leader Turabi to meet southern rebel chief Garang
KHARTOUM, Oct 29 (AFP) — Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi on said he would meet soon with southern rebel leader John Garang.
“Arrangements and contacts are under way for my meeting with Dr. John Garang shortly,” Turabi told reporters here, refusing to say when and where the encounter would taken place.
Meanwhile, Turabi indicated that democracy was a prerequisite to peace, saying that peace “will collapse in the absence of a genuine democracy.”
He spoke to reporters following a meeting with a committee of 10 that is seeking national reconciliation to coincide with an eventual end to Sudan’s 20-year-old civil war.
“I told them to bring us their ideas in writing to discuss and agree on a form for national unity and reconciliation,” he said of the committee, which is chaired by former chief justice Dafaallah al-Haj Yousuf.
Sudan’s war erupted in 1983 when Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army took up arms against Khartoum to end domination of the mainly Christian and animist south by the Arabised, Muslim north.
More than 1.5 million people have been killed and more than four million people displaced in the conflict.
The warring parties have been conducting peace talks in neighboring Kenya and appear to be on the verge of reaching a deal.