Sudanese vice-president returns to peace talks

NAIROBI, April 26, 2004 (IRIN) — The leader of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), John Garang, is expected to return to the venue of peace talks with the government “within the next 24 hours”, a source close to the talks in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, told IRIN on Monday.

Garang’s expected return follows that of Sudanese First Vice-President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha on Sunday morning. Taha “came back after concluding consultations in [the Sudanese capital] Khartoum for the next phase of the talks”, Neiman Bilal, the press attaché at the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN.

Taha, the head of the government delegation to the talks, had left Naivasha for Khartoum on 17 April for consultations with his government over the talks, a Sudanese government official told IRIN at the time. His departure was followed by that of Garang on 23 April.

The source said Taha’s return, and the expected return of Garang “within the next 24 hours” would invigorate the peace talks. “Their return means they will be able to make decisions that need to be made to resolve the outstanding issues,” said the source.

Committees at the talks, brokered by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), were continuing to discuss two contentious issues: power-sharing in regions disputed by Khartoum and the SPLA, and the law governing the national capital.

The government of Sudan was insisting that shari’ah law must continue to apply in Khartoum because the two sides had earlier agreed that it would apply in north of the country, “and Khartoum is in the north”, Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in Nairobi, told IRIN on Friday.

However, Samson Kwaje, an SPLM/A spokesman, told IRIN that Khartoum was “a special case as the national capital of the whole of Sudan, not just the north, and should therefore be exempt from shari’ah”.

Kwaje said on Monday he hoped that Taha, after consultations with his government, “will come [up] with a positive response to resolve these two issues”.

Dirdeiry, for his part, said his side was waiting for a proposal from the IGAD secretariat on how the outstanding issues could be resolved. “The vice-president returned after IGAD said it was ready to present its proposal. We are waiting for that and the return of Garang.” He added that the government of Sudan “will respond once the IGAD proposal on the two issues is presented to it.”