Sudan’s main rebel chief confident that final peace deal will hold
by Bogonko Bosire
NAIROBI, May 30 (AFP) — The main rebel leader in Sudan expressed confidence that a final peace deal with Khartoum will hold, amid the latest advances in efforts to end 21 years of devastating civil war in Africa’s largest nation.
On Wednesday, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and Khartoum signed accords on the last three outstanding issues in peace talks to cap two years of intense talks in Kenya, leaving only the details of a comprehensive ceasefire and implementation modalities. Final talks are due to resume on June 22.
The deals broadly give the rebels and other northern opposition groups substantial presence in an envisaged government of national unity while defining semi-autonomous status for southern Sudan.
“We can now say that we have a basic peace agreement… This was a major front, a great battle and a major victory,” SPLA leader John Garang told around 2,000 Sudanese refugees, amid ululations and traditional dances in the largest conference centre in Kenya.
The agreements “contain all the objectives we have fought for”, he said.
“I am confident that the agreement will be implemented, because there are guarantees, (which include) what that we have already signed and the previous agreements,” he added.
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.
Garang said the implementation of a final deal will be internationally monitored.
“This is an agreement that was negotiated in front of the international community… There will be international monitors and peacekeepers. The world will be watching,” Garang explained.
However, he added that “the cost of not implementing the agreement must be made higher than the cost of implementing it.”
Garang described the latest advances as a restoration of “the dignity of southern Sudanese and other marginalised areas. Nobody will take us for granted (anywhere in the world) … we have come here to stay.”
Garang also pledged to address local division.
“We are all aware that the challenges of peace may be more challenging than those in war… The movement is committed to engage in serious and open dialogue to work for the unity of our people. This will be implemented through the movement’s policy of south-south dialogue,” he said.
“We will engage various militia groups all over the south and other political forces or parties so that we discuss reconciliation, unity and how to be all-inclusive in governance,” he added.
But Garang, a former government commander warned: “We must ever remain vigilant so that we are not caught offguard by unexpected development.”
The latest phase of Sudan’s long-running civil war reignited in 1983 when the south, where most observe traditional religions and Christianity, took up arms to end domination and marginalisation by the wealthier, Islamic and Arabised north.
Together with recurrent famine and disease, the war in Sudan has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced more than four million people, mostly in the impoverished south.
Garang paid “tribute … to all heroes and martrys” who died in the war.
“They did not die in vain… The legacy and spirit of their struggle will always guide us and all generations to come towards a better and ever better Sudan,” he said, before observing a minute of silence in their memory.