SUDAN-POLITICS: Selling Peace Accord to a Sceptical South

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, May 7 1996 (IPS) - One day in April, rebel commander Riak Machar slipped out of the southern Sudan bush, boarded a military aircraft, and flew to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

Machar’s arrival in the northern city and his signing of a peace accord was celebrated by the militant Islamic government as marking the end of the country’s 13-year civil war.

“But it has not,” says a southern Sudanese refugee here, “and I don’t think that his return will ever end the war in the south. To me, Machar is just a prodigal son who has decided to return home and ask for forgiveness from his father.”

The refugee, who refused to be named for security reasons, said if the accord was as popular as the government claims, an estimated one million southerners in Zaire, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea, would by now be clamouring to return. But, “so far, no one has followed Machar back to the Sudan,” he noted.

The problem is that the peace agreement does not include the main southern guerrilla commander, John Garang, the leader of the mainstream Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). He has described the Political Charter signed between Machar and the Sudan government as nothing but a document of capitulation.

But David de Chand, the representative of Machar’s Southern Sudan Independent Movement (SSIM) here, says it is early days and the movement is still selling the charter to the people of southern Sudan.

“We have been talking to a lot of groups,” he told IPS, “and the responses we have been getting are excellent.”

“This is because our goal is clear. The agreement we are working on will allow the people of southern Sudan to exercise their rights in a referendum where they will decide whether to remain within a united Sudan or form an independent nation of their own,” he says.

“If they vote for a separate south, that means the people have spoken, and if they vote to remain within a united Sudan, so be it. Their wish will be respected.”

“This is what we are selling to the people of southern Sudan,” he continues. “We shall soon start holding rallies and invite other southern movements and groupings to attend and come out with an alternative, if they have got any.”

The SPLA counters that the SSIM are merely willing agents of an insincere Khartoum attempting to further divide the south.

The SPLA, which originally began its rebellion in 1983 with the demand for greater political and economic representation for all marginalised areas of Sudan, has since redefined its goal as autonomy for the south. Garang also has close links with northern groups in opposition to the repressive government of President Omar al-Bashir.

Machar, along with several other commanders, split from the SPLA in August 1991 accusing Garang of dictatorial tendencies. Since then, a number of factions, each vehemently opposed to at least one group, have emerged in the south. In parts of Bahr el Ghazal, Jonglei and Upper Nile provinces, clashes between rebels have become more common than battles against the government army.

The groups oppose one another on ethnic and political grounds. The SPLA-mainstream is supported by the Dinka community, the largest in the south. The SSIM, whose troops are mainly Nuers, demand independence for the region. So does SPLA-United, comprising fighters from the Shilluk ethnic group. Its leaders however are at loggerheads with the SSIM.

In addition to these three main factions, there are also smaller armed militias.

But the success of Machar’s peace effort will depend on whether the Nuers, southern Sudan’s second largest ethnic group, will go along with him. So far, only one commander, John Luk, has parted ways and last week rejoined the mainstream-SPLA.

But de Chand ridicules the merger. “John Luk doesn’t have any soldiers and all the areas he claims are under him have been taken over by the SSIM forces.”

Apart from the local difficulty of selling the political charter, the SSIM is having trouble winning the backing of the international community which Machar has called on to support the peace deal.

In key capitals like Nairobi, London and Washington, the SSIM appears to have made little headway. “In Nairobi,” says a former senior Sudanese official, “people think it’s a joke. Nobody is taking it seriously.”

Khartoum sent Ahmed Sidamhed and Gatluak Deng, top aides to al- Bashir, to persuade Kenya to support the peace effort. Both have since returned home apparently empty handed.

Kenya, which has yet to comment publically on the charter, holds the chairmanship of the seven-nation Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) which has been trying to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in the Sudan.

IGAD, set up in 1986, comprises Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, D’jibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Of the six, only Kenya, Somalia and D’jibouti enjoy normal relations with Sudan. The rest accuse their much bigger neighbour of exporting its brand of Islamic extremism across its borders, and backing local rebel movements.

For Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda, backing Garang is their riposte to Khartoum’s alleged destabalisation.

Aid agencies estimate that more than 500,000 people, mainly civilians, have died in the south since the conflict erupted in May 1983.

In the light of the scale of suffering, Machar’s message is a simple one: “It is time that a peaceful solution to the conflict is pursued with vigor, and now,” he said in April.