Peace deal to be signed by the week-end in Kenya
NAIVASHA, April 7, 2004 (Sudan Tribune) — Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army will sign an agreement on the power sharing and the three disputed regions by Saturday.
The week-end deal will clear the last main obstacles to end the 21-years civil war, the SPLM’s spokesman Yasser Arman told Sudan Tribune by phone from venue of the negotiations in Naivasha.
The remaining issues : the capital status- which is partially solved -, power-sharing in Nuba Mountains and Southern Bleu Nile will be finalized during the coming days.
“After that, technical committees will work to finalize a series of questions as security arrangements and guaranties”, Arman further added.
However, he didn’t give any indication about the date of the signature of the final peace agreement. But it seems that ceremonial arrangements may take time to agree on the date and place.
American administration had proposed to celebrate the event in the White House. Sudan’s government indicated its preference to be signed in the region.
During the last three months of negotiations, differences have emerged between Sudanese warring parties over the structure and mandate of a proposed United Nations-supported peace-monitoring team to operate during the crucial six-and-a-half-year transitional period planned to follow the signing of a final peace agreement.
While the SPLM/A insisted over the need for peacekeeping force to ensure that both parties fully implemented the terms of the peace accord during the transitional period, the Sudanese government said it preferred the idea of peace monitors.
The US President special envoy for peace in Sudan, John Danforth had tabled on March 19 a proposal on how to solve the dispute over oil rich Abyei. Under the U.S. proposal, the region of Abyei would be given special status once a peace deal is reached, meaning it would have its own executive and would belong to both the north and south
Khartoum government negotiators and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, have been discussing three so-called disputed regions – the Nuba Mountains, southern Blue Nile and Abyei – since January.
The significant progress in talks had been attributed in part to U.S. pressure. The agreement was reached after the USA sent the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Charles Snyder to Kenya, to encourage the two parties.
Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) leader John Garang began a series of face-to-face negotiations in September last year.
Lower-level discussions aimed ending a civil war that broke out in 1983 were launched in Kenya in 2002.