Sumbweiywo: army commander who brokered peace in southern Sudan
NAIROBI, Jan 7 (AFP) — Retired Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, the man who mediated a final peace agreement between Khartoum and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) to end Africa’s longest war, successfully served as an army commander and peace broker.
A frequent church-goer, Sumbeiywo, who attributes his success to God, has remained in the media limelight from his days in military uniform to his high-profile life in civvies.
“It was reached by the will of God. I feel humbled that actually God chose me” to broker peace in this conflict, Sumbeiywo told AFP this week in Nairobi.
Named by then Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi in 1997 as the chief mediator in regionally-sponsored peace talks, the army commander started from scratch: building trust between the two sides which had fought each other since 1983.
“It was a monumental task, nearly mission impossible,” Sumbeiywo remembers, referring to the treacherous road from 1994 when both sides drew up a roadmap to the peace talks in Nairobi on Sunday, when they will sign the final peace accord.
Born in Kenya’s western Rift Valley province’s Keiyo region in 1947, the towering Sumbeiywo was first taught in rural schools before working his way into the military and enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Britain in 1968.
Upon returning to the country two years later as a lieutenant, he was conscripted into the ranks of the army and served in military intellegence until he was appointed head of Kenyan ground forces in 2000.
Sumbeiywo, who frequently shuttled between Khartoum and Nairobi to breathe life into the talks whenever they stalled, retired from the army in 2003 to focus single-mindedly on the peace process.
Rank-and-file soldiers describe him as honest, hardworking and a tough disciplinarian.
When discontented airforce officers attempted to overthrow Moi in 1982, Sumbeiywo, then the head of military intelligence, and other loyalists went to the presidential home in the Rift Valley and took him to safety to avoid an assassination plot.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) last year described Sumbeiywo as an “excellent negotiator with good instincts,” who had what it takes to cool tempers of perpetual foes, like the Sudanese.
Delegates in the marathon peace talks say Sumbeiywo disliked the idea of imposing deadlines on Khartoum and the SPLM/A, notably when outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell extracted a pledge from Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha to reach agreement by the end of 2003.
“He disliked deadlines on the talks. He never liked world politicians tossing their weight around when they did not know the intricacies of the negotiations,” a delegate told AFP of the father of six.
The war erupted in 1983 when the rebels rose up against Khartoum, denouncing Arab and Muslim domination on the black, animist and Christian south.
The war and associated famine and disease have killed at least 1.5 million people and displaced four million others in the oil-rich southern region of Sudan, Africa’s largest nation.
Asked if he would like to take up any other role to mediate conflicts in the region, Sumbeiywo, a keen farmer, said: “I have no problem so long as God continues to use me as his instrument to restore peace in the region.”