Sudan rebel leader says peace process hit difficulties
By EMMANUEL NTAVE Associated Press Writer
MAPUTO, Mozambique, Nov 16, 2003 (AP) — Sudan’s government and rebels are facing some difficulties in negotiations for a peace agreement, a Sudanese rebel leader said Sunday during a visit to Mozambique to seek advice on how to end Africa’s longest civil war.
Nhial Deng Nhial, the head of foreign affairs for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, led a delegation to meet with Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, the current chairman of the African Union, in the Mozambican capital Saturday, Chissano’s spokesman said.
“We told President Chissano what the parties to the conflict have been doing in the search for peace”, Nhial said.
The peace process in Sudan is going through “some difficulties,” Nhial told reporters without elaborating.
Chissano shared his own peace negotiation experiences with the delegation, said Francisco Madeira, a Mozambican government minister.
“It was a lengthy and profound meeting, and they expressed great interest in learning from Mozambique in matters of seeking for peace”, Madeira said.
Sudan’s Islamic government, led by Omar al-Bashir, has its power base among Muslims in the north, but is rejected by Christians in the south who back the SPLA.
SPLA forces have been fighting troops of the Khartoum-based government since 1983, seeking autonomy over southern areas in the African continent’s largest country. The war has claimed more than 2 million lives, mainly because of war-induced famine. The conflict is also driven by competition over oil wells and land.
In a breakthrough after more than a year of talks, the government agreed in September to let the SPLA retain its force in the south, the main area of conflict, for a six-year transitional period.
Negotiations are set to continue in Kenya at the end of November.
Thousands of Sudanese refugees fled over the past 20 years of civil war. The government says the war also displaced about 4 million people who moved to northern Sudan to avoid the fighting.
Mozambique ended nearly two decades of civil war in 1992 with a peace accord brokered by the Catholic church and the Italian government, ushering in a decade of democracy, peace and impressive economic growth in the impoverished and devastated country.
The conflict ignited after Mozambique won independence from Portugal in 1975 and rebels, with the backing of white minority governments in then-Rhodesia and South Africa, tried to oust the government.