2002-2003/AFRICA: The Road to Peace

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Katy Salmon

NAIROBI, Dec 18 2002 (IPS) - Peace negotiators have had a busy year in East Africa, with Kenya and Tanzania hosting several rounds of talks aimed at ending conflicts in the region.

In Sudan, there has been groundbreaking success, with combatants laying down their arms for the first time in nearly two decades. Burundi and Somalia have also taken some small steps towards ending their civil wars, though an end to those conflicts appears much further off.

‘’We can say that the year 2002 is the year for peace in Sudan,” proclaims Osama Mahjoub Hassan of the Sudanese Embassy in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

Observers are predicting that Sudan’s warring parties will sign a comprehensive peace agreement next year, following the amazing achievements made in the last 12 months.

Most of the key issues that led rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) to take up arms against the Sudanese government in 1983 have already been settled.

‘’We established solid bases and solid ground. I think now it is easy for us to sail with the other issues. Everything is prepared, (and) issues are identified. So we are very optimistic about the future of the peace process in Sudan,” confirms Hassan.

Peace talks had stalled for a decade over two key issues, which were finally settled on July 20, with the signing of the Machakos Protocol, named after the Kenyan town in which the talks were being held.

In this document, the government conceded to two rebel demands – to exempt southern Sudan from Islamic Sharia (law) and to allow a referendum on independence for the south after a six-year interim period.

The other major achievement was the signing of a cease-fire in October. However, both sides have accused the other of violating the accord.

SPLA spokesperson George Garang complains that fighting is continuing in western Upper Nile and Bahr el Ghazal, near to Sudan’s valuable oil fields.

‘’It has not become easier because the government of Sudan, through its affiliated militia forces, are still harassing our population in southern Sudan,” he charges.

‘’In Gogrial, Bahr el Ghazal, the government garrison has been attacking local villages, burning houses, stealing cattle – all these acts which are contrary to the memorandum of understanding,” he says.

However, he says that fighting has stopped everywhere else in Africa’s largest country.

The change in the international climate after the Sep 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, and the U.S.’s subsequent ‘war on terror’ has contributed significantly to the break-through in Sudan’s peace process.

Sudan’s government has been anxious to co-operate in the war on terrorism and shake off its reputation as a country that harbours terrorists.

Its radical Islamic government hosted Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the Sep 11 attacks, and other terrorist organisations during the early 1990s.

When the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998, probably also by bin Laden, the U.S. bombed Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, in retaliation.

‘’Immediately after September 11th, there was a possibility that American reaction towards the attacks could possibly turn towards Sudan,” says David Mozersky, an analyst with the independent Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

‘'([This) certainly brought greater interest and seriousness in Khartoum than there has been in the past,” he says.

Negotiations between the Sudanese government and the SPLA resume in January.

In Burundi, the government is also facing a rebellion from a group that feels it is being excluded from power. In this case, it is the Hutu majority, which has taken up arms against Burundi’s Tutsi-dominated army.

During 2002, three out of the four Hutu rebel groups signed a cease-fire under intense pressure from the regional community.

The largest rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, signed on Dec 3. But fighting has continued.

Burundi’s army complains that it is impossible to observe the cease-fire because it cannot distinguish the three rebel groups who did sign from the National Liberation Front (FNL), who did not.

Regional mediators have been threatening to impose sanctions on the FNL to force them to comply.

Burundi analyst Jan van Eck says this is unlikely to succeed. ‘’The worst thing that could be done is to terminate all contact with them and to completely write them off. I think, then they will become even more difficult,” he warns.

Van Eck emphasises the importance of dialogue in winning the rebels over. ‘’We have no choice but to continue engaging them and to see when the opportunity arises for them to also participate in the process,” he says.

Regional actors also have spearheaded efforts to end the anarchy in Somalia, which has been without a central government since 1991.

After months of delays, talks opened in the Kenyan town of Eldoret in October. To everyone’s surprise, the delegates soon agreed to a cease-fire, which appears to be holding. ‘’The cease-fire is being taken rather seriously,” says Mustapha Hassouna, a diplomacy analyst at the University of Nairobi.

‘’They have come out rather strongly to suggest that there’s not going to be any fighting in the region. There’s not going to be any fighting in Mogadishu. That’s a step forward in the right direction,” he says.

Several hundred Somali delegates are now trying to iron out key issues, including disarmament, federalism and property rights.

For the talks to succeed the negotiators must come up with a formula for sharing wealth and power that satisfies all groups.

But this will be difficult. Progress has been slow, with weeks spent arguing over the best method of representation û according to factions or clans.