Sudan SPLM to press inclusion of exiled opposition in peace deal

ASMARA, April 27 (AFP) — The leaders of southern Sudan’s main ex-rebel group have agreed to press Khartoum for the inclusion of exiled dissident groups in a landmark north-south peace deal signed in January, officials said Wednesday.

John Garang, chief of the ex-rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), made the commitment during talks here with Mohammed Osman el-Mirghani of the exiled National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the officials said.

“They agreed to speed up the completion of the Cairo agreement in order for the NDA to join the arrangement of the transitional period,” said SPLM/A spokesman Yasir Arman.

Under the terms of the Cairo agreement, sealed just a week after the north-south accord was signed in Nairobi, Khartoum and the NDA agreed to try to extend the peace deal beyond the SPLM/A.

A key point of the Nairobi deal that ended 21 years of north-south war — Africa’s longest-running conflict — is a six-year transitional period of autonomy for the south after which it will hold a referendum on seccession.

The protocol — covering political, constitutional and legislative issues — between Khartoum and the NDA, which has been banned for the past 15 years, was to have been finalized in February 12 but was never signed.

“Both (Garang and Mirghani) agreed to work together to convene as soon as possible the last negotiation round between the NDA and the Sudanese government in Cairo,” Arman said.

The NDA is a coalition of northern organisations and is seen as a rival to the Al-Umma party — Sudan’s legal opposition — and the outlawed Popular Congress.