Thousands turn out to welcome delegation of Sudanese rebels on their arrival in Khartoum
By MOHAMMED OSMAN Associated Press Writer
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Dec 05, 2003 (AP) — More than 30,000 opposition supporters overwhelmed airport security on Friday and rushed up to a plane carrying the first delegation of rebels to arrive in the Sudanese capital in 20 years. They hoisted the rebels on to their shoulders and carried them to the official government reception party.
“Welcome SPLA!” cheered the crowd, referring to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army which began the civil war in 1983 in a bid to achieve autonomy and democracy for southern Sudan.
Dressed in a black suit, the delegation leader Pagan Amum waved to the crowd as he was carried across the tarmac. Amum is a member of the SPLA’s leadership council.
“This is one of the biggest rallies that have seen recently. I cannot say how many people were there, but the crowd is commensurable with the event,” said the head of the reception committee, Kamil Gadora.
Until the recent achievements of the peace negotiations in Kenya, any SPLA leader who flew to government-controlled Sudan would have risked being arrested and charged with treason.
Most of the crowd were southerners. Hundreds of thousands of southerners have moved north, many living in squatter camps around Khartoum, to escape the fighting in the south. But the crowd also had northerners – supporters of the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella group that encompasses the SPLA and northern opposition groups.
The government has welcomed the visit. The 10-member delegation is expected to spend a week in the capital meeting senior government officials and representatives of civil society and Christian and Muslim groups.
SPLA leader John Garang announced the planned visit on Wednesday, saying it would buttress the peace talks under way in Kenya by helping “in building confidence among people and initiate the process of national healing and reconciliation.”
Government officials have said the visit could open the way for Garang himself to come to Khartoum and become part of Sudanese political life.
The civil war has killed more than 2 million people through combat and attendant famine and disease. It has fallen off since a series of cease-fires began in October 2002.
While the war is often pictured as a conflict between the Muslim north and the Christian and animist people of the south, it is also a struggle for land and the oil resources that straddle the north-south border.
Although Sudan is on the U.S. list of terrorist sponsoring countries – it was host to al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s – the United States has been working with both sides to encourage the peace process.