Sudanese foes fine-tune wealth pact – delegates
By Wangui Kanina
NAIVASHA, Kenya, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Sudanese foes trying to end a civil war put the finishing touches on Tuesday to a pact on sharing wealth once peace comes and the two top negotiators will review it later in the day, delegates at peace talks said.
An accord would dismantle a big hurdle to ending 20 years of war in Africa’s largest country that have cost two million lives, but even that would be some way off the full peace deal the two sides had promised by the end of December.
Samson Kwaje, a spokesman for the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), told Reuters a technical committee of experts would hand the draft to SPLA leader John Garang and the country’s first vice-president Osman Ali Taha in mid-afternoon.
A signing ceremony would probably take place on Wednesday if the two men approved the lengthy document’s wording, he said.
But he added: “We (both sides) have pledged to work through Christmas (if need be).”
Government delegates declined to comment on the timing of any approval or signature of the document, which aims to settle the distribution of oil revenue, the collection and sharing of taxes, the central bank’s role and questions about the currency.
But the government delegates said they, too, were ready to talk through Christmas if the wealth pact needed further fine-tuning.
War broke out in Sudan in 1983, pitting the Islamic government in the Arab-speaking north against rebels seeking more autonomy for the largely animist or Christian south. Oil, ideology, ethnicity and religion have complicated it.
The sides agreed last year to a waiver on Islamic law in non-Muslim areas and a six-year transitional period from January 2004 after which the south would vote on whether to secede.
Washington pledged in October to boost aid to Sudan to rebuild the sparsely populated country of 30 million but warned that assistance hinged on the implementation of a peace deal.
Negotiators have said a proposed agreement on oil revenues broadly sees a 50-50 shareout between the government-controlled north and an SPLA-controlled southern regional authority during the six-year transitional period.
That would be a major concession by the government, which had wanted only five percent of oil revenues to go the SPLA. Sudan’s main oil fields are in the south, where the SPLA is based. Sudan exports 300,000 barrels of oil per day.
Wealth is only one of three outstanding topics — the others are power sharing in the interim period and the status of three contested areas.