South Sudan leader ready to help with Darfur crisis

ADDIS ABABA, Feb 6 (AFP) — John Garang, veteran leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in southern Sudan, has said he is prepared to help seek a solution to a bitter conflict in Darfur, in the west of the vast country.

“The role that we can play is moral and political. We are neither part of the government nor of the resistance movement,” said Garang late on Saturday after talks with leaders of the African Union at the body’s headquarters in Addis Ababa.

“I’ll listen to the government and the resistance and I’ll be happy to play that role,” he said.

Garang, who last month signed a peace settlement for southern Sudan after decades of war, said he would be willing “to see how the agreement on the southern Sudan can be adapted to solve the problems of Darfur and eastern Sudan.”

He spoke after talks with Oumar Konare, president of the African Union’s executive Commission.

Darfur has been in the throes of a murderous civil war for the past two years, and the government in Khartoum is also battling rebels in eastern Sudan.

Adam Thiam, a spokesman for the AU, said Konare had asked Garang to help settle the Darfur conflict via his future role as a vice-president in a new Sudanese government.

The SPLM leader is also due to represent Sudan at upcoming meetings of the UN Security Council devoted to the Darfur conflict.

“President Konare asked (Garang) to ensure that the government of national unity that is to be set up in the coming weeks put the settlement of the crises in Sudan at the top of its agenda,” Thiam said.

“That means Darfur, but also the east and south of the country,” he added.

After visiting Addis Ababa, Garang was due to travel on to Eritrea on Sunday.