Salva Kiir meets US envoys, seeks Darfur peace

By Katie Nguyen

NEW SITE, Sudan, Aug 3 (Reuters) – The new leader of southern Sudan met with top U.S. and South African envoys on Wednesday as part of diplomatic moves to maintain the fragile peace accord in Africa’s largest country.

Salva Kiir — who took over the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) after former rebel leader and vice-president John Garang’s death in a weekend helicopter crash — also pledged to fight for peace in the western region of Darfur.

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Connie Newman and the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Roger Winter, flew on Wednesday morning into New Site, a settlement in the south Sudanese bush where Garang’s body is on view.

Washington has dispatched them to help efforts to maintain the January peace accord between the SPLM and Khartoum government in the north that ended 21 years of civil conflict.

Garang was a major force behind the peace agreement and had taken Sudan’s vice-presidency in a new power-sharing government just three weeks before he was killed. His death sparked rioting that has killed dozens in Khartoum and raised fears in some quarters that the peace deal may unravel.

“Enemies of peace may want to take opportunity of this situation so they don’t allow the government and the SPLM to implement the peace agreement,” Kiir said before going into a meeting with the U.S. pair.

“So we are very much concerned about that and we would want to stop it and that is why we are appealing to all the Sudanese people to refrain from any hostility.”

The U.S. envoys were due to stay overnight in New Site before going onto Juba, also in southern Sudan, on Wednesday. From there, they will go north to Khartoum to meet President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

DARFUR CONCERNS

Kiir and other senior SPLM leaders met earlier on Wednesday with South Africa’s Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

South Africa, the heavyweight of sub-Saharan Africa, has been deeply involved in recent years in pushing peace agreements across the continent.

After that meeting, Kiir said he — like Garang — would work to help resolve the crisis in Darfur, where rebels are fighting the government in a war that has killed tens of thousands and forced about 2 million out of their homes.

“When you claim your rights and you are not given (them), you resort to violence as a way of expressing your discomfort,” said Kiir. During their two-decade conflict, the southern rebels had similar complaints against Khartoum — of neglect and marginalisation — as the Darfur insurgents now.

“The rebels fighting in Darfur must have a cause and this is why we say the government and the SPLM must do everything they can to bring peace to Darfur. It doesn’t matter whether anybody is sympathetic to them or not. War must stop and peace must prevail in the whole country.”

Having formally taken Garang’s position as SPLM leader, it is assumed Kiir will also take his other recently-appointed post as first vice-president in the new Sudanese government.

Washington, which is focusing its diplomacy on encouraging a smooth transition in the SPLM, has welcomed Kiir’s selection.

“It’s a good thing that this process has moved forward,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey said on Tuesday.

“We’re continuing to look for — and what we are so far seeing — is an orderly and peaceful succession process for the position of first vice president.”

(Additional reporting by Saul Hudson in Washington)