Southern Sudan peace talks resume in Kenya

By Wangui Kanina

NAIVASHA, Kenya, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government and southern rebels resumed peace talks Friday as the clock ticks toward their agreed deadline of ending Africa’s longest-running civil war by Dec. 31.

General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, The chief mediator of the Sudan peace talks .

The Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) signed a pledge in front of the United Nations Security Council last week promising to end the 21-year-old war by Dec. 31. The conflict has killed some two million people.

This last round is to finalize a permanent cease-fire and to work out how to turn the peace agreement into reality.

Lazarus Sumbeiywo, a retired Kenyan general acting as chief mediator of the talks in the Kenyan resort town north of Nairobi, urged delegates Friday to meet the deadline.

“The parties need to identify the key elements in each protocol and make emphasis on where priorities are in order to form the basic common vision of implementation of the agreement,” he told the delegates, according to a statement provided to reporters.

Media were not allowed into the meeting, where a four-week program for negotiations was set out. The Islamist Sudanese government and the mainly animist or Christian SPLM have made substantial progress toward a peace deal. But dates by which both sides have promised to reach a final agreement have repeatedly slipped since 2003.

“We should have signed a comprehensive agreement a long time ago, but Khartoum has been stalling,” said an SPLM official.

Sudan has denied similar previous accusations.

LACK OF CLARITY

The U.N. Security Council, meeting in an extraordinary session in Nairobi to push the peace process forward, promised political and economic support once Sudan ended its southern war and a separate conflict in its western Darfur region.

Some analysts say the fighting in Darfur, which has triggered what the U.N. says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, has slowed progress toward a deal in the south.

But there are outstanding issues to be tackled by lower-level negotiators from both sides before First Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLM chief John Garang return for meetings on Dec. 5.

Topping the agenda is funding for SPLM forces not integrated into the national army and how the government will administer payments of lucrative oil revenues to the south.

Analysts say a coherent plan for Sudan’s future, beyond the current transitional one that would lead to a referendum on southern independence, is still missing.

“There needs to be a vision for where Sudan is going, what it is going to look like,” said David Mozersky of the International Crisis Group.

“The south could vote for independence in six-and-a-half years. Where does that leave northern Sudan? There is a lack of clarity on where the country is going right now.”