Ruling partners renew commitment to Sudan peace
March 27, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s two main governing parties have renewed their commitment to peace and vowed never to resume the north-south war that plagued Africa’s largest country for two decades.
President Omar al-Beshir’s National Congress and First Vice President Salva Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) made the pledge late Monday after a three-day meeting of their leaderships.
“Both parties pledge to implement the peace deal and never to revert to war for whatever reason,” said a joint statement.
Beshir’s party and the former rebel SPLM signed a peace deal in January 2005 ending a 21-year civil war that had left around 1.5 million people dead and four million displaced.
The former foes then joined forces in a national unity government but tension has simmered since as implementation of some major points of the peace agreement has fallen behind schedule.
The statement said both parties vowed “to resort to dialogue to overcome the challenges they face in implementing the peace deal.”
The agreement’s provisions on wealth-sharing have been paricularly contentious and the signatories remain at odds over the fate of some oil-rich areas straddling the north-south border.
The four-year-old violence in the western region of Darfur has also driven a wedge between the governing coalition partners.
While Beshir — whose regime stands accused of genocide by Washington over Darfur — has always rejected any UN intervention, Kiir’s SPLM has openly said it would welcome UN troops.
Beshir has also been adamant he would not comply with a demand by the International Criminal Court to bring Darfur war crimes suspects to justice, while some members of the SPLM adopted a more conciliatory tone.
Monday’s joint statement said both sides promised to “step up efforts to find a solution to the Darfur problem, which is a priority issue.”
According to the UN, at least 200,000 people have been killed since the fighting erupted in Darfur in February 2003, also prompting the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Only one rebel faction signed a peace deal with Khartoum in May 2006 but the agreement failed to make an impact. Rebel splinter groups has since flourished and violence continued unabated.
Kiir, who recently met non-signatory rebel leaders in Chad, announced his intention to invite them to Juba, the capital of south Sudan, in a bid to relaunch the moribund peace process.
The SPLM and some Darfur rebel factions have historical links and Kiir has stepped up his mediation efforts.
Darfur rebels, who launched their uprising in a bid to obtain a greater share of the country’s resources, seek a similar settlement to that obtained by the SPLM in the semi-autonomous south.
(AFP)