UN envoy, Dutch minister to visit southern Sudan

RUMBEK, Sudan, Jan 17 (AFP) — United Nations special envoy for Sudan Jan Pronk and Dutch Development Cooperation Minister Agnes van Ardenne are to pay a two-day visit to southern Sudan this week, a UN official told AFP.

Pronk and van Ardenne are expected in the south’s provisional capital of Rumbek on Tuesday for talks with officials from Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and humanitarian groups based there, the official said.

“The talks will focus on development and reconstruction,” the official added.

On January 9, the SPLM/A and the government in Khartoum signed a final peace agreement in Kenya, ending Africa’s longest conflict that had claimed at least 1.5 million people and displaced four million others over the past 21 years.

The UN Security Council has promised to consider sending aid and even peacekeepers — reportedly as many as 7,000 troops — to keep the peace in southern Sudan.

The war erupted in 1983 when rebels from the mainly Christian and animist south took up arms to end years of domination by successive Islamic governments in Khartoum.

SPLM/A leader John Garang is expected to travel to Rumbek later in the week as preperations continue to prepare the bombed-out town to host the south’s semi-autonomous government for an interim period of six months.

After the six months is over, the southern capital is to move to the larger town of Juba for a six-year transition period after which the south will hold a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede.