Sudan challenge is to make peace plans reality
By Wangui Kanina
NAIVASHA, Kenya, May 27 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government and southern rebels face a complex challenge to turn their peace proposals into a workable interim administration, Norway’s international development minister said on Thursday.
Hilde Frafjord Johnson’s department has co-funded peace talks along with other Western governments and she has closely followed negotiations in Kenya leading to Wednesday’s signing of accords paving the way for a permanent ceasefire and comprehensive peace.
“The most difficult part is done,” she told Reuters in an interview at the talks venue outside Kenya’s capital Nairobi.
“There are a lot of important issues remaining, obviously. The ceasefire negotiations will be challenging, but the two parties already have a (temporary) cessation of hostilities agreement in place showing the willingness on the part of both parties to stop the guns.
“(But) the modalities of implementation will be very complex; the military and technical implementation will be very challenging,” she said.
Over the past nine months, the two sides of Africa’s longest running civil war have agreed to form a national army and share power during a six-year interim period leading to a referendum in the south on independence.
With major hurdles cleared, the two sides and international mediators must now sit down and thrash out the practicalities of the transition that will be included in a final comprehensive peace agreement for the oil-producing state.
Chief Mediator Lazarus Sumbeiywo said at Wednesday’s signing ceremony — after a decade of on-off efforts for peace — that the final deal would come within the next two months.
“I believe the time period stated by Sumbeiywo is realistic,” Johnson said.
But she noted that many groups in Sudan — analysts cite up to 30 militia groups — were not included in the peace talks.
“People of Sudan are hungering for peace; there are very many different groups in both the north and south of Sudan who feel excluded from the peace process,” Johnson said.
She noted in particular the need for the peace process to encompass the western region of Darfur, where horseback militias have spread terror among black African villagers, sending an estimated one million people fleeing from their homes.
“It is a precondition for lasting peace that the peace process includes all people including civil society, political parties and other political forces. Sudan is a complex country and its complexity should be taken in to account.”