US encourages peace in Sudan
By ANWAR IQBAL, UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst
WASHINGTON, Jan 06, 2005 (UPI) — Secretary of State Colin Powell’s decision to attend the signing of an agreement between the Sudanese rebel and government forces was made to encourage peace and reconciliation in Africa’s largest nation, the State Department said Thursday.
The department’s deputy spokesman Adam Ereli called the expected accord “a watershed in the decades-old conflict in Sudan” and said Powell’s “visit is a recognition of the importance of this agreement.”
Sudanese rebel and government leaders are expected to sign a peace accord in neighboring Kenya on Sunday, aimed at ending Sudan’s long-running north-south civil war.
After completing a tour of tsunami-ravaged countries in Asia, Powell plans to travel to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The visit will probably be the final stop on his overseas mission.
Powell, who will step down as secretary of state later this month, also took personal interest in resolving Sudan’s other disputes and last year visited the country’s western Darfur region where a conflict between a government-sponsored Arab militia and ethnic Africans has caused thousands of deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Ereli said Powell’s visit will be an opportunity to convey to the Khartoum government and southern rebels the value the United States places on resolving the country’s remaining political disputes through dialogue and negotiation.
The United States, which has stayed engaged in peace efforts in Sudan for more than a decade, hopes the accords the rebels and government leaders are expected to sign this weekend will end the long-running north-south civil war.
In Washington, Ereli said it was now up to the Sudanese to move forward with this opportunity for peace. “As far as what it portends for the future, that really depends on the Sudanese, and the actions that they take to resolve the other ongoing conflict in their country, which is the conflict in Darfur,” he said.
“Fighting there continues. There is obviously, as we all know, a very concerted and determined effort by the international community, in the front ranks of which is the United States, to bring that conflict to an end.”
Ereli said the degree to which the Sudanese government tries to settle the Darfur conflict, and end “rampant human rights abuses” there, will have a large bearing on the future shape of U.S.-Sudanese relations.
The north-south conflict erupted in 1983, pitting the Muslim government in Khartoum against mainly Christian and animist rebels seeking autonomy for the south. It led to the deaths of more than 2 million people, mainly from war-related hunger and disease.
The African Union, an organization of 53 African nations, played a key role in peace negotiations and the United States actively supported the process, despite frustrating delays and last minute glitches. The State Department twice announced in 2004 the two parties were closed to signing an accord, but had to retract when the talks broke down at the last moment.
The agreement now being signed in Nairobi provides for the sharing of legislative power and natural resources, including Sudan’s growing oil revenue.
John Garang, head of the southern rebels, will join a new government of national unity as first vice president and the Sudanese government will withdraw at least 91,000 troops from the rebel-controlled south.
The forces must pull out within 2 1/2 years, while a proposed government for the autonomous southern Sudan will raise a separate army using its share of oil and tax revenues as well as international aid.
The rebels will have eight months to withdraw their forces from northern Sudan. They must pull out 30 percent of their fighters within four months of the signing of the accord.
The rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army and government forces also agreed to either disband their allied paramilitary groups in southern Sudan or merge them with rebel and government forces within a year.
Government and rebel forces each will contribute 20,000 troops to new, integrated army units. Rebels and the government also agreed to demobilize an unspecified number of troops.
Under the accord, Sudan will rewrite the constitution to ensure that Islamic law, or Shariah, is not applied to non-Muslims in the country.
U.S. officials hope a solution to the civil war will spur a resolution to a separate conflict between government-backed forces and rebels in the western Darfur region, where disease and hunger have killed 70,000 people since early last year.
Nearly 2 million people are thought to have fled their homes since the Darfur crisis began.
State Department’s spokesman Richard Boucher told a briefing in the Indonesian capital Jakarta that Powell would meet Saturday and Sunday with Kenyan government officials and also confer with Sudanese leaders on the crisis in Darfur region.