Sudan’s Islamic opposition criticises peace agreement
KHARTOUM, Oct 7 (AFP) — Sudan’s Islamic opposition party criticised Tuesday a deal between the government and southern rebels on military and security arrangements and said other parties should have been included.
In a statement faxed to AFP, the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) of Hassan al-Turabi said given that the accord was reached last month between two parties, those “two parties only will bear its consequences.”
On September 25, the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) signed a deal on security arrangements during a six-year interim period due to come into effect once a comprehensive peace accord is signed.
Sudan’s civil war started when the SPLA took up arms in 1983 and since then more than 1.5 million people have been killed in war and war-related famine.
Talks between Khartoum and the rebels focused on wealth-sharing, power-sharing and the status of three disputed regions of a country ravaged by war resumed in Kenya on Monday.
In Khartoum that day, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir praised the rebel leadership for dramatic progress in negotiations in Kenya and said only a short stretch remained for ending 20 years of civil war.
The war takes place against a background of domination of the mainly animist and Christian south by the Arabised, Islamic north, but has become increasingly driven by a fight for control of natural resources, notably oil.
A senior PCP official told AFP on Tuesday that his party would be willing to begin a dialogue under certain conditions, including the release from jail of Turabi and other detainees.
“We are ready for a conditional dialogue, but not outright reconciliation, with the government,” said the official, Beshir Adam Rahmah.
Rahmah said the PCP would want its headquarters reopened, permission to publish its newspaper, and to be treated like other political parties.
Turabi was arrested in February 2001 amid a power struggle with President Beshir, who dismissed the Islamist ideologue from his powerful post of parliamentary speaker in December 1999.
On August 15, 2002, the authorities decided to keep Turabi in custody under an emergency law that allows them to detain people without pressing charges for a renewable period of one year.
His second year of detention under this law ended in early September.
The government held Turabi first in a prison, before transferring him in October 2001 to a government detention house in Khartoum’s Kafouri suburb, where his wife Wisal al-Mahdi was allowed to stay.