Sudanese vice president and rebel leader continue talks for fifth day in attempt to break deadlock in peace talks
By TOM MALITI Associated Press Writer
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 08, 2003 (AP) — Negotiations between the vice president of Sudan and the head of southern Sudanese rebels continued in Kenya for the fifth day Monday in an attempt to break the deadlock in peace talks aimed at ending the 20-year civil war in Africa’s largest nation, the chief mediator said.
Because the meetings are still going on between Ali Osman Taha and John Garang, head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the resumption of the regular talks set for Wednesday “has been overtaken by events,” Lazaro Sumbeiywo told The Associated Press.
Taha and Garang have been in discussions since last Thursday in Naivasha, 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of Nairobi, to iron out disagreements over the creation of a new national army, the sharing of political power and the country’s oil wealth and determination of what exactly constitutes southern Sudan. Failure to reach agreement on these issues led to the suspension of the peace talks on Aug. 23.
“It is my expectation that they will reach political decisions,” Sumbeiywo said, adding, however, that there is no deadline in the negotiations between the two men.
The latest round of talks to end the conflict began in July 2002 and quickly produced the Machakos Protocol, under which the government accepted the right of southerners to self-determination through a referendum after six years. The rebels in turn accepted the maintenance of Islamic or sharia law in the north. But disagreement soon broke out over whether sharia law would also apply to the capital, Khartoum.
The talks are mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, a regional authority. The meeting between Garang and Taha is organized by both IGAD and the Kenyan government which chairs the organization’s Sudan subcommittee.
A cessation of hostilities agreement was signed last Oct. 15 and is to remain in effect for as long as the talks continue.
More than 2 million people have died in the war, mainly through famine and disease exacerbated by fighting. Although initially seen as a conflict between Sudan’s Arabized Muslim north and the south where the vast majority follow traditional religions and 5 percent are Christians, the country’s new oil wealth has complicated things.