Sudan foes set to sign key peace protocols
NAIVASHA, Kenya May 26 (AFP) — After two years of talks, Sudan’s government and main rebel group were Wednesday finally set to sign three accords crucial to clinching a comprehensive resolution to 21 devastating years of civil war in the south.
The signing ceremony in the town of Naivasha, 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Nairobi, was due to take place mid-afternoon, a little later than previously scheduled.
“The signing will be delayed for two to three hours because we are fine-tuning the protocols and filling the gaps here and there,” Yasser Arman, spokesman for the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) told AFP.
A Kenyan foreign ministry official confirmed this.
Among those in Naivasha for the ceremony were Sudanese Vice President and chief negotiator Ali Osman Taha, SPLA/M leader John Garang, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Charles Snyder, Norwegian International Development Minister Hilda John Stone and foreign ministers or representatives of the African body mediating the talks, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.
Hundreds of Sudanese civilians began arriving early Wednesday morning at the hotel where the signing was to take place.
On Tuesday, the foreign ministry in Kenya, which has played a lead role in the negotiations, announced that “a major breakthrough… has been achieved.”
“The breakthrough has realised agreements on key outstanding issues of power-sharing, the two conflict areas of Nuba Mountain and Southern Blue Nile as well as Abyei,” ministry said in a statement.
“The protocols represent a major step towards the achievement of a final comprehensive settlement to the conflict.”
The accords will cap two years of intensive negotiations, leaving only technical aspects of a permanent ceasefire to be thrashed out before a comprehensive peace accord is sealed.
The deals do not cover a separate 15-month conflict which is raging in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
Taha and Garang have been meeting in Kenya since September 2003, after lower-level delegates failed to move forward.
On Tuesday, the US welcomed the imminent deal in Kenya.
“We’re pleased with the progress that is being made at Lake Naivasha in Kenya between the Sudanese parties,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters.
“These documents represent major milestones on the road to a peaceful settlement of Sudan’s civil war,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington.
Snyder met Taha and Garang in April and early this month to express international displeasure that the peace process had been dragging on for too long.
Sudan’s war erupted in 1983 when the south, where most observe Christianity and numerous traditional religions, took up arms to end domination by the wealthier, Islamic and Arabised north.
Together with recurrent famine and disease, Africa’s longest conflict has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced more than four million people, mostly in the impoverished south, according to aid agencies.
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.