NEWSMAKER-Sudan Islamist turned peacemaker with southerners.
KHARTOUM, Jan 9 (Reuters) – The Sudanese government’s top peace negotiator, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, who has dedicated his life to building an Islamic state, seems an unlikely man to forge peace with mainly Christian and animist southern rebels.
But analysts say Sudan’s first vice-president, who sealed a deal on Dec. 31 after face-to-face talks with southern rebel leader John Garang, has both political clout and pragmatism that enabled him to succeed where others failed.
Taha took a direct role in peace talks in September 2003 and with Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), achieved a major breakthrough with a deal on the structure of Sudan’s army, overcoming one of the toughest issues that had faced the two sides.
Thousands of Sudanese from both the north and south turned out to celebrate the agreement last Saturday, hailed as a new beginning for Africa’s largest country.
“The war in the south is over,” Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told a ceremony in the Kenyan town of Naivasha where Taha had initialled the deal.
Now in his mid-50s, Taha has been a pillar in the government of Bashir, who came to power in a military coup in 1989 and who heads an Islamic government.
The imposition of Islamic sharia law in 1983 by a previous president was one of the catalysts for Sudan’s civil war. Southerners, who are mainly non-Muslims, have been fighting since then for autonomy and for exemption from sharia.
Analysts say Taha’s influence among inner government circles and a strong streak of pragmatism are the secret of his success.
“Taha is the key to the talks because he is the power in Khartoum,” one northern Sudanese political analyst said.
“He is a pragmatist,” a senior Western diplomat said.
Taha was promoted to first vice president from foreign minister when his predecessor died in a plane crash in 1998.
As a student, he joined the National Islamic Front (NIF) – a political party which aimed to turn Sudan into an Islamic republic.
The NIF, whose name later changed to the National Congress Party, supported the 1989 coup that brought Bashir to power.
In the mid-1990s, Taha headed the Social Planning Ministry, which oversaw Khartoum’s efforts to make Sudan more Islamic, partly through spreading the teaching of Islam in schools.
Born in the Nile River State in 1947, Taha studied law at the University of Khartoum.