Doubts cast over signing of Sudan peace protocols Wed

NAIVASHA, Kenya, May 26, 2004 (AP) — Plans for the Sudanese government and southern insurgents to sign an agreement resolving the key disputes in their 21-year civil war experienced hitches Wednesday, with government negotiators complaining of rebel intransigence on a few remaining details.

The government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army were expected to sign three protocols on the last major issues that had prevented the two sides from reaching a comprehensive peace deal.

If the protocols are signed, all that remains to work out are procedural matters to end Africa’s longest-running war.

But Ad’Dirdeiry Hamed, deputy Sudanese ambassador to Kenya, warned that there were still some sticking points early Wednesday.

“We don’t think it’s possible to sign anything today unless we are going to sign all the outstanding issues,” Hamed said. “The reality is the (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) is not going to accept any middle ground position … it’s most unlikely” the government will sign on Wednesday.

The rebel spokesman, Samson Kwaje, was upbeat however, insisting that the protocols would be signed.

“There are last minute consultations going on,” Kwaje said. “It may be delayed, but it will take place today.”

The latest effort to end the southern conflict began in Kenya in 2002 and the Sudanese government and the rebels have already agreed on how to share the wealth in Africa’s largest country and what to do with their armed forces during a six-year transition period.

But the talks stalled in recent months as the parties wrangled over how to share power in a transitional government, whether the capital, Khartoum, should be governed under Islamic law and how Southern Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains and Abyei -areas in central Sudan -should be administered during the transition period.

Officials from neither side would discuss what progress had been made in the talks on these issues, but everyone involved agrees that once these are solved, working out the procedures for a permanent cease-fire and how to implement the agreement will be comparatively easy.

“This is not the final stretch of the peace process … it is one of the giant steps,” Lazaro Sumbeiywo, the chief Kenyan mediator, said.

But it could take months to determine whether the diplomatic solution will translate to peace on the ground, where more than 2 million people have died, most from war-induced famine. There are rogue elements in the Sudanese army and small rebel factions that may be difficult for both sides to control.

The peace talks taking place in this Kenyan town, 100 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, do not involve rebels fighting a separate insurgency in the Darfur region of western Sudan. More than 1 million people have been made homeless by the violence in Darfur, creating a situation U.N. officials have described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Yasir Arman, a rebel official, said the agreements reached between the southern rebels and the government could be used as a model to solve conflicts in other parts of Sudan.

“This should impact positively on the situation in Darfur and eastern Sudan for a comprehensive and just peace,” he said.

The southern conflict broke out in 1983 after the rebels from the mainly animist and Christian south took up arms against the predominantly Arab and Muslim.

The insurgents say they are fighting for better treatment and for southerners to have the right to choose whether to remain part of Sudan. Southerners will vote in a referendum at the end of the transition on whether to secede.

Although often simplified as a religious war, the conflict is fueled by historical disputes and competition for resources, including major oil reserves