Members Of Sudanese Rebel Group Arrive In Sudan For Talks

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Dec 05, 2003 (AP) — A delegation representing Sudan’s main rebel group arrived in Khartoum Friday for the first talks with Sudanese officials in the capital since the country’s civil war erupted 20 years ago.

The 10 members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army are expected to meet senior government officials and civil society and religious groups, both Christians and Muslims, during their visit. Their trip is expected to buttress talks that will resume in neighboring Kenya Sunday on ending the civil war.

Until recent achievements of the peace negotiations in Kenya, any SPLA leader who flew to government-controlled Sudan would have risked being arrested — or worse.

The Sudanese government has welcomed the visit and pledged to cooperate with the visiting delegation as another way to end the conflict between the Muslim-dominated government in Khartoum and the Christian and animist rebels in the country’s south.

Sudanese officials have said the visit could open the way for the SPLA, headed by John Garang, to become a genuine part of Sudanese political life.

The civil war has killed more than 2 million people through combat and attendant famine and disease. It has fallen off since a series of cease-fires began in October 2002.

While the war is often pictured as a religious conflict, it is also a struggle for land and the oil resources that straddle the north-south border.

Although Sudan is on the U.S. list of terrorist sponsoring countries — it was host to al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s — the United States has been working with both side to encourage the peace process.