Sudan’s former rebel to mediate between govt between Darfur rebels

KHARTOUM, Mar 19, 2005 (Sudan Tribune) — The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) will, in the coming month of April, present before the chief mediator in the Abuja talks a draft proposal on tackling the Darfur crisis politically, besides proposing the draft to the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebels, and promising to support Darfur and eastern Sudan once the southern government is set up.

SPLM leader John Garang.

The secretary for development and international cooperation of the SPLM, Kostilo Garang, told the Khartoum based Al-Ray al-Amm that SPLM leader John Garang would meet President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and his first vice-president on the sidelines of the donors conference in Oslo in April. The SPLM leader will propose to the two, the Nigerian mediator as well as to the Darfur rebels, the SPLM’s view on resolving the Darfur crisis.

Kostilo asserted that it was illogical for the south to stabilize after such a long war and then for other regions to enter into fresh wars – an issue which will undermine the achievements of the Nairobi agreement, reduce the chances of development and erode the sympathy of the international community towards the government during the transitional period, “which we do not want to inherit as a crisis in the current government”.

Responding to a question by Al-Ray al-Amm on whether the SPLM supported the trial of Darfur war criminals in the Hague, the SPLM’s secretary of development and cooperation said his movement’s strong position was that the war criminals should be tried internally and in open courts, unprejudiced by the international community’s call for its participation in the trial.

He stressed that the trial of the war criminals in external courts would imply the government’s withdrawal from the Nairobi agreement, noting that the SPLM, as a government partner in the transitional period, will explain to the international community the danger of representation of the war criminals before the Hague, or any other external court.