Sudan government, ex-rebels ask Japan to help bankroll peace

TOKYO, March 17 (AFP) — Japan, which is considering sending peacekeepers to Sudan, could also make a key contribution to reconstruction of the war-torn nation by aid and investment, Sudan’s government and an ex-rebel envoy said Thursday during a visit to Tokyo.

“We look at Japan as a donor and as an investor,” Pagan Amun Okiech, a senior member of the ex-rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, told AFP.

“Sudan is in need of support of the international community to recover. Sudan will become a destination of investment, given its huge natural resources potential,” he said.

Okiech was here on the invitation of the Japanese government along with Yahia Husain Babikir, the Khartoum government’s state minister for the presidency, who said Japan seemed ready to contribute.

“We have seen a positive posture by Japan and its readiness to contribute in the reconstruction of Sudan,” Babikir said.

Officially pacifist Japan is considering a deployment of peacekeepers to Sudan in what could be a breakthrough if Japanese troops actively disarm combatants in addition to providing logisticial support as in past missions.

Okiech said Japanese peacekeepers would be welcomed, but that Sudan’s main hopes for Tokyo focused on economic aid.

An assessment team by the Khartoum government and the former rebels earlier this month concluded that Sudan needed almost eight billion dollars over the next two years to recover from the two-decade north-south civil war.

Africa’s longest civil conflict ended in January after 21 years and the loss of about 1.5 million lives, although a separate bloody conflict is ongoing in another region of Sudan, Darfur in the west.