US urges southern Sudanese to work for unity, peace
Nov 11, 2005 (JUBA) — The number two U.S. diplomat urged southern Sudanese leaders on Friday to give new momentum to their peace deal with Khartoum and announced that the United States would support the process by opening a consulate in Juba.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick also called on the southern leaders to help spread the peace to the crisis-torn Darfur region in western Sudan.
The United States has expressed concern that the landmark north-south peace deal was being implemented too slowly, that the violence in Darfur put the accord at risk and that its success or failure still hung in the balance.
Zoellick, who held talks with Darfur rebel leaders and the new national unity government earlier this week, urged southern members of the government to revive the momentum of peace efforts in a country that has been ravaged by civil war for much of the past 50 years.
He held talks with Vice President Salva Kiir — a southern Sudanese former rebel leader — and said the opening of a consulate in Juba, the southern capital, was a step towards closer ties and a symbol of U.S. support for peace efforts.
“The United States knows that as a follow-through on the peace that was negotiated (in January 2005), there’s a very important element here of building a strong government of (southern) Sudan, which we believe will contribute to a strong Sudan,” Zoellick told a joint news conference with Kiir.
He did not say when the consulate would open its doors.
The peace deal called for an autonomous southern Sudanese government, in addition to a national unity government including the National Congress party of President Omar al-Bashir, former southern rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and other political groups.
Kiir is the president of southern Sudan, and serves as Bashir’s first vice president.
The peace deal also allows southerners to vote on secession in six years, but Kiir said unity was the priority. “It doesn’t cross our mind that secession is the first objective of the SPLM,” he said.
PUSHING REBELS TOWARD PEACE
As part of efforts to bring peace to all of Sudan, Kiir said he had met members of the Sudan Liberation Army, Darfur’s fractious main rebel group, in Nairobi on Thursday to urge them to overcome splits and come to the next round of peace talks with the national unity government on November 21 in Abuja with a unified position.
Zoellick also met SLA rebel leaders in Nairobi earlier this week, but failed to coax them into a unified camp.
He then sent Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer on Thursday to meet the newly elected SLA president Minni Arcua Minnawi — who had not attended the Nairobi meetings — but Zoellick said on Friday the divisions persisted.
Both Minnawi, and Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, who also claims the SLA presidency, say they will attend the Abuja talks.
Violence has worsened in recent months in Darfur, where mostly non-Arab rebels launched a revolt against Sudan’s Islamist government in early 2003, accusing Khartoum of monopolizing wealth and power.
The fighting has forced two million people from their homes and left tens of thousands dead in what the United States has called genocide.
(Reuters)