Protesters urge UN to intervene to revive stalled Sudan peace talks
NAIROBI, Aug 20 (AFP) — Southern Sudanese exiles demonstrated here on Wednesday, urging the UN Security Council to intervene and revive talks aimed at ending a 20-year civil war in Africa’s largest nation.
Around 100 protesters gathered outside UN offices here and the embassies of countries involved in the peace process for Sudan, brandishing banners urging the UN Security Council to pass a resolution that would automatically draw the international community into peace efforts should current efforts to broker peace collapse completely.
“We are tired of war. We are tired of being in exile. Sudan peace process should be embodied in the UN Security Council resolution,” read some of the banners carried by the demonstrators.
The protesters accused Khartoum of delaying an agreement in order to exploit the rich oil resources in the south. The demonstrators say the south’s oil bonanza is at the heart of the 20-year conflict that has killed up to two million people and displaced another four million.
Meanwhile, east African mediators were working round the clock to bring Khartoum and southern Sudanese rebels back to the negotiating table just days after talks in the central Kenyan town of Nanyuki collapsed, government and media sources said in the Sudanese capital Wednesday.
“The IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) secretariat is still exerting strenuous efforts to bring the viewpoints of the government and (rebel) movement closer,” presidential peace advisor Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani was quoted as saying by Sudan’s official daily Al Anbaa.
The official had returned to Khartoum late Tuesday from the deadlocked talks in Nanyuki, where he headed the government team negotiating with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
East African IGAD mediators postponed talks indefinitely Monday night, after a week of deadlock in which the two sides failed to agree on an agenda for negotiations.
The protesters on Wednesday delivered petitions to the British, Italian, Norwegian, and US embassies in Nairobi, as well as to the Kenyan goverment, IGAD and UN offices. They urged the Security Council to step in should the current talks be scotched.
“If the current IGAD peace talks collapse, we appeal to the Council to embody and pass a resolution to solve the Sudan problem,” it said.
“We ask the international community to intervene,” said the petition, read to journalists by protester Amer Ajok.
A protocol was signed in the Kenyan town of Machakos in June last year, guaranteeing the south a six-year period of autonomy after which a referendum will be held to decide whether the largely Christian and animist south will secede or remain under the administration of the largely Arabised, Muslim north.
The current round of talks snarled over whether Islamic law should be applied in Khartoum and if there should be one or two armies during the south’s six-year transition period.
“These talks should never be allowed to drag on forever, same for the devastating war,” Ajok said.