Sudan govt, southern rebels to sign peace deals this week: Kenya official
NAIROBI, May 24 (AFP) — Sudan’s government and main southern-based rebel group are expected to finally sign deals this week on the remaining issues standing in the way of a comprehensive accord to end 21 years of civil war, Kenya’s foreign minister said Monday.
“They will be signing a set of three protocols, one on power-sharing, the other one on (the disputed area of) Abyei and the other one on the two areas of Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile,” Kalonzo Musyoka told reporters in Nairobi.
Such accords would cap two years of intense negotiations between Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), leaving only technical aspects of a permanent ceasefire to be thrashed out before a comprehensive peace accord is sealed.
“I am very optimistic that this week we should get … (the) signing hopefully” as early as Wednesday, Musyoka told reporters after returning from the talks’ venue in Naivasha, 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Nairobi.
An official in the mediation body, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, confirmed the protocols would be signed this week.
Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA/M leader John Garang were Monday ironing out the text of the deals.
Sudan’s civil war has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and forced more than four million people from their homes.
The Kenyan talks do not cover a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur, where two different rebel groups rose up against Khartoum in February 2003, prompting the Sudanese government to employ militia forces who have been widely accused of ethnic cleansing and creating a major humanitarian crisis.
Since July 2002, when the two sides struck an accord granting the south the right to a referendum after a six-year transition period, other deals have been reached on a 50-50 split of the country’s wealth — particularly revenues from oil — and on how to manage government and SPLA armies during the interim period.