Sudanese VP to Oslo for donors conference

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Apr 10, 2005 (PANA) — A high-level delegation led by First
Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha left Khartoum Sunday for
Oslo, Norway to attend a donor conference convened there for 11
and 12 April to discuss Sudan’s post-war reconstruction.

Official sources told PANA here that the government and the
separatist Sudan Peoples Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) had
jointly elaborated development projects for the south, following
the return of peace there, saying these would over the next two
years require some 7.8 billion dollars.

Khartoum and the SPLA/M signed a definitive peace accord last
January in Nairobi, Kenya, ending 21 years of fighting in
southern Sudan.

Some 60 delegates, including SPLA/M leader John Garang are billed
to attend the Oslo conference. Also expected at the meeting are
representatives from the World Bank, the European Union and the
Arab League.

Of the nearly eight billion dollars needed for post-war
reconstruction in the south, some 2.6 billion dollars would come
from the international community, while the rest would be funded
by revenue from Sudan’s oil resources, according to a report
compiled last month by representatives from the government and
the SPLA/M.

In the build up to the Oslo conference, Khartoum had been on a
diplomatic drive to rally the support of African and European
countries for the peace process in Sudan.

At Oslo, Sudan would be seeking support for development projects
as well as the repatriation of refugees.

The conference is expected to addressed by UN Secretary General
Kofi Anan and many world leaders.

It would, however, be holding against the backdrop of mounting
international pressure for Khartoum to resolve the crisis in the
western Sudanese region of Darfur.