SUDAN-SOUTH AFRICA: SPLA Rejects Mediation Role by Mandela

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Aug 22 1997 (IPS) - Sudan’s main rebel group has rejected a direct mediation role by Nelson Mandela, preferring the South African leader to act only as a facilitator to an already existing regional peace forum.

The snub comes just one-week after the South African President had agreed to mediate the Sudanese conflict, following a visit to South Africa by Sudan’s President Lt-Gen. Omar Hassan al Bashir last week.

Following the parley, Mandela told journalists in Cape Town that he would meet al Bashir, rebel leader John Garang and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda in South Africa soon, in an effort to kick-start peace talks between the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Then on Thursday (Aug. 21), a statement signed by the SPLA spokesman, John Luk, said here that the rebel movement was not seeking an alternative forum. “The SPLA remains committed to the IGAD peace process under President Daniel Arap Moi and will not seek another alternative forum.”

IGAD is the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, which is under the auspices of President Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya. It groups Kenya, Uganda, D’jibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Sudan.

Luk said the SPLA was not aware of any imminent meeting between Garang and Gen. al Bashir. “This rumour was first circulated by Khartoum to the utter amazement of the SPLA as Khartoum obviously does not schedule our meetings, nor are they the spokesmen of the SPLA,” he said.

Shedding some light on the confusion, Luk explained that an SPLA delegation was in South Africa at the same time that al Bashir was there last week, and that Garang also visited South Africa last December.

“During these two occasions, the South Africans informed the SPLA leadership that President Mandela was willing to use his good offices to facilitate the IGAD peace process, and that his initiative would be within the context of the IGAD initiative, and this was welcomed by the SPLA,” Luk said.

“This is the true picture of things as they stand until this moment,” he said.

The latest round of IGAD-sponsored talks failed in Kenya on Aug. 19. No reason was given by President Moi for the failure to hold the talks. But, both the Khartoum government and the SPLA have continued to blame each other for the failure.

More than one million people have died in southern Sudan since the SPLA launched its bush war 14 years ago to demand for greater autonomy for the non-Muslim population of the region — home to 35 percent of the 27 million Sudanese — from the Muslim-dominated north.

Then came the August 1991 split within the SPLA by three renegade commanders Riak Machar, Lam Akol and Gordon Kong, which weakened the rebel movement, prompting Khartoum to sieze territories previously held by the insurgents.

Six years later Machar signed a peace charter with the Sudan government, and, in April 1997, translated the charter into a peace agreement.

Machar is now the chairman of the Southern Sudan Co-ordinating Council whose brief is to oversee the 10 states in the south, and organise a referundum within four years to decide on whether the southerners want to secede or remain part of a united Sudan.

Garang has refused to join the agreement, calling it a sellout. He said Khartoum was simply using Machar’s army to fight the SPLA on its behalf.

Machar, speaking to journalists here during a stopover from South Africa over the weekend, rejected the view advocated by Garang. He said his group, made up of six former rebel factions, would continue to appeal to the SPLA until they join the peace wagon.

But, by the way tempers are rising, it is likely that the SPLA and the Sudan government may decide to sort it out on the battle field in southern Sudan.

And, right now, there appears to be a stalemate in the fighting. Of the three original southern regions, Garang only controls Equatoria, which borders Uganda, Kenya, Zaire and the Central African Republic (CAR).

The other crucial region, Bahr el Ghazal, is being contested between his forces and that of Machar’s group, under commander Kerubino Bol, a founder-member of the SPLA and Garang’s erstwhile number two in the rebel hierarchy. And the third region, the Upper Nile, which is Garang’s own home area, is virtually a no-go area for the SPLA leader. It is under Machar.

Experts on the region say here that the support that the SPLA enjoys from Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda — all united in their common fear of Khartoum’s alleged plan to export its brand of extreme Islam across its borders — may tilt the balance of power on the battlefield in Garang’s favour.

On Wednesday, Abdel Mahmoud Osman Mansour, who is the spokesman of the Sudan’s Kasala state, claimed that the tiny Red Sea nation was amassing troops along their common border to invade Sudan.

Relations between Sudan and Eritrea are at a very low ebb, with the government in Asmara playing host to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella body which groups motley armed northern opposition organisations and the SPLA.

The NDA forces have been claiming some military successes against the government troops since opening up a new military front in the east of the country, on the border with Eritrea, in December last year.

On Tuesday, Major Arok Thon Arok, a founder-member of the SPLA who has signed the peace agreement with the Sudan government, told journalists in the Sudanese capital Khartoum that Garang was not interested in talks. “He is currently meeting with his top commanders somewhere in southern Sudan to plan for a major offensive,” he claimed.