Southern rebel leader wants broader power sharing in Sudan

CAIRO, Dec 3 (AFP) — Sudanese rebel chief John Garang said he wants to share power not only with President Omar al-Beshir but with other political leaders once the ongoing peace process brings an end to the 20-year civil war..

In a telephone interview with AFP, Garang, leader of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army, also said an SPLA delegation would travel to Khartoum on Friday.

“Of course, we will share power, but with other powers,” he said.

“It is not Beshir and the National Congress, the ruling party, alone, but also sharing power with all other powers,” he said, without locating where he was calling from.

Garang did not name these forces but he met in Cairo in May with the leaders of the main northern opposition groups, Sadeq al-Mahdi, head of the Umma Party, and Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani, head of the Democratic Unionist Party.

The three issued a joint statement promising to “make all efforts to support the current negotiations … and realize a national consensus through the participation of all political forces.”

Only the Khartoum government and SPLA have been directly involved in the peace negotiations in Kenya, with Mirghani and other northern opposition leaders warning that their exclusion augured badly for peace prospects.

The talks are aimed at ending a war that erupted in 1983 between the SPLA, which has sought to defend the rights of animists and Christians in the south, and successive Arab and Muslim governments in the north.

Umma and other northern opposition groups joined the SPLA in 1995 in Eritrea in taking up arms against Beshir, but their unity lasted only a few months.

Garang, who spoke mainly in English in the interview but also a few words of Arabic, repeated hopes that a final peace settlement could be reached with Khartoum by the end of this month.

The main outstanding issues are finding formulas to share political power, divide up the oil wealth and determine the status of the capital Khartoum, as well as that of three disputed regions.

The rebel leader said a senior SPLA delegation will travel to Khartoum on Friday, the same day Garang resumes high-level negotiations in Kenya with Sudanese First Vice President Ali Osman Taha.

It will be the first such visit to Khartoum since war broke out two decades ago, Garang said. “It is a goodwill delegation to consolidate the peace process, and make it irreversible and to ensure inclusiveness.”

The delegation will “engage in dialogue with all political powers … as well as civil society groups to ensure participation of all powers in the process,” Garang said.

“It is meant to build a national consensus” that will pave the way for a final settlement, “hopefully by the end of this year,” he said.

Garang also said it was important for Khartoum to negotiate an end to a new rebellion that erupted in western Sudan’s Darfur region, which has long complained of being neglected economically by the central government.

“We hope this problem is resolved amicably,” he said.

The SPLA has said it has nothing to do with the rebellion in Darfur that broke out in February.

In Khartoum, meanwhile, SPLA representatives launched a media campaign Wednesday, holding their first press conference there since the war broke out.

SPLA spokesman Ramadan Mohammed Abdullah characterized the gathering as the “beginning of public (political) action” in the capital and explaining that “we are a political and democratic movement open to all Sudanese.”

A US delegation held talks Wednesday in Khartoum with Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on “details of the next session of negotiations and the humanitarian situation”, Sudan’s state news agency SUNA reported.