East Sudan peace talks begin, long road ahead

Aug 7, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — A second round of east Sudan peace talks opened late on Monday in what promises to be a long road to resolving a lingering low-level revolt in the economically important region of the country.

With peace deals already under its belt in the west and south, Khartoum’s ruling National Congress Party is in a strong position to negotiate with the now isolated and weakest of its regional rebel opponent groups — the Eastern Front.

“Tonight we have a short opening session,” said Amna Dirar, the Secretary-General of the main eastern political party, the Beja Congress, part of the Eastern Front coalition.

“Tomorrow we will discuss the agenda for wealth-sharing,” she told Reuters from the Eritrean capital Asmara. “I think it will take some time — there are many main issues that we still haven’t discussed.”

The east has Sudan’s largest gold mine and its main port where its oil pipelines take exports to the world market. But despite its rich resources it remains one of the country’s poorest regions.

During about a decade of low-scale conflict, eastern rebels have allied themselves with former southern rebels and those from Sudan’s western Darfur region.

But after some of those insurgents signed peace deals to join the central government the eastern rebels have found themselves in a weaker negotiating position.

This year they also lost control of the Hamesh Koreb area on the Eritrean border where, along with southern rebels, they had based their forces.

Under a 2005 north-south deal, the northern army took over the area earlier this year. U.N. peacekeepers monitoring that transition withdrew last week.

Dirar said Eritrean military observers had moved in after the U.N. withdrawal to the border town of Kassala to monitor the security situation but she could not confirm they were still present in the area.

In June, Sudan’s government and the eastern rebels signed a pact to cease hostilities and agreed a framework for future talks.

This second round of eastern talks will discuss wealth and power sharing and security arrangements.

(Reuters)