Tension diffused over Sudan peace formula
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 2, 2004 (PANA) — Sudan peace talk mediators and the rebel Sudan People`s Liberation Army/Movement Saturday denied reports of a fallout between the parties to the peace talks aimed at ending decades of war in the Sudan.
There has been an impasse over Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)`s proposals to break a deadlock over power- sharing, according to reports from the peace talks.
Kenyan Chief Mediator Lazarus Sumbeiywo said the two key parties, Vice President Ali Osman Taha and the Sudan People`s Liberation Army/Movement leader John Garang met Saturday morning in Naivasha, 100 km west of Nairobi, in a bid to strike common ground on the IGAD proposals.
“The two parties are discussing the proposals and have not replied or submitted their views to us yet. The vice president left the talks to open a new Sudan embassy in Nairobi and would be back later to continue with the talks,” Sumbeiywo told PANA on the phone.
But reports said that the two parties had reached out to the IGAD mediators led by Sumbeiywo to help break a stalemate over power- sharing in the three disputed regions of the Blue Nile, the Nuba Mountains and Abyei last week, just when a final peace deal was about to be had.
IGAD has proposed to exempt non-Muslims in the capital Khartoum from the application of the Islamic Sharia law, while the sharing of political power was pegged on a 70-30 percent ratio between the government and the rebels.
According to the reports, Taha and Garang flatly rejected the proposals, which among others, also stated that the Arabic language would be used in the North, while the Garang home turf of the South would adopt English as its official language, and that the two parties should share the two regions of Nuba and Blue Nile equally.
However, SPLA/M spokesperson Yasser Arman said the talks were making progress as planned.
“We are hopeful that a new comprehensive peace agreement would be signed in this round of talks,” Arman told PANA.
The 24-year old conflict, one of the longest civil strifes in the Great Lakes Region, has claimed two million lives since it reached its peak in 1983 when Garang sought to stamp his authority in the South.