Sudan days away from accord with S. rebels: official
KHARTOUM, May 8 (Reuters) – The Sudanese government and rebels from the south of Africa’s largest country expect to sign an agreement in days to end a 21-year civil war, a senior Sudanese official told Reuters on Saturday.
Talks between Khartoum and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) have been complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology, and a separate conflict in the western Darfur region.
“We are anticipating an agreement to be signed within the coming week as (First Vice President) Ali Osman (Mohamed Taha) is due back (in Khartoum) by next Saturday,” said the official who asked not to be named.
The official said Taha would return to chair a body to be formed when the deal is signed to help the government implement the agreement.
Mediators said on Friday the two sides had pledged to reach an agreement in the coming days to end the war that pits the Islamic Arabic-speaking government against southern rebels fighting for greater autonomy.
The official said the two sides would settle the remaining issues of power sharing and the status of three contested regions.
“The parties will sign protocols on the remaining issues after which there will be a break during which all the previous agreements will be drafted together into a comprehensive peace agreement,” he said.
There is little sign of respite in a separate conflict wracking the western region of Darfur.
Khartoum had decided to set up a committee to investigate the situation in the region, another government official said on Saturday.
“President (Omar Hassan) al-Bashir issued a presidential decree yesterday (Friday) for the establishment of a truth finding committee to look into the situation in Darfur and verify what is actually going on,” State Minister for Foreign Relations Najeeb al-Kheir Abdul Wahab told reporters.
The Sudan government on Friday rejected a human rights report that said it was responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in the troubled western province of Darfur.
Human Rights Watch said government forces “oversaw and directly participated” in massacres, summary executions of civilians, the burning of towns and villages and the forcible depopulation of areas long inhabited by African Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa tribes.
Wahab also said the United States and the European Union shared the responsibility for Darfur’s troubles.
“It was their (the European Union and the United States) unwise decision to withdraw development aid and place economic sanctions on Sudan that has punished the provinces of the country that still depend to a great degree on international resources to aid their development,” he said.