POLITICS-SUDAN: Peace Talks Re-open in Kenya

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Katy Salmon

NAIROBI, Jan 22 2003 (IPS) - It has taken some skilful negotiation by the mediators to get the two sides back to the negotiating table, but peace talks aimed at ending 20 years of civil war in Sudan finally re-opened Wednesday.

Talks between the government of Sudan and rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) were supposed to start the previous Wednesday but the government refused to attend. The government argued that the agenda – to discuss three dispute areas – was outside the mandate of the talks.

Three days of separate, informal discussions about the disputed areas were hastily arranged, with the two sides now returning to the topics – of power and wealth sharing – they were debating when talks broke off in November.

While the problem has temporarily been shelved, it will not go away. The SPLA are determined to get the three areas – southern Blue Nile, Abyei and the Nuba Mountains – recognised as part of southern Sudan.

According to the borders set at independence in 1956, the three areas are part of the north.

‘’We think the three areas are an integral part of the SPLA. Any peace settlement must include them,” says George Garang, one of the SPLA’s Nairobi spokespersons.

‘’As soon as we have finished with power sharing and wealth sharing we have to discuss the problem of the three areas,” he insists.

For its part, the government remains determined to keep the three areas out of the main peace-talks. It greatly downplays the three-day discussion that was, eventually, held last week.

‘’A symposium is not anything other than an opportunity for both parties to brainstorm and to listen to experts who have came from far and wide to present their expertise and to avail it to the parties,” says Mohamed Dirdeiry, a senior diplomat at the Sudanese Embassy in Nairobi.

‘’There is an agreement already issued by the parties that the three areas will not be part of the IGAD discussions,” he says.

A forum has been set up to discuss the disputed areas. ‘’We are supposed to discuss right now the modalities, the agenda and the general guiding principles for this forum,” he says.

Even with the controversial issue of contested land out of the way for now, the atmosphere of the talks has already been somewhat marred by counter-accusations of hostilities, in violation of a cease-fire agreement which is supposed to last until March.

Official Sudanese state radio claims the army repulsed a rebel attack in oil-rich Unity State.

The SPLA denies this, charging that it was the government which went on the offensive.

‘’It always seems when we start negotiating with the government of Sudan they always attack on the eve of negotiations. We are not surprised that they are doing the same again,” says Garang.

‘’We know that they are not interested in peace. We know that they think the military option is preferable to them,” he alleges.

The government rejects Garang’s claims. But both sides are firm that they will not let the fighting in Unity State affect the talks.

Last year, the government pulled out of talks in protest when the rebels captured the key garrison town of Kapoeta in the south. But Dirdeiry is confident that will not happen this time around.

‘’I think nobody speaks right now of an all-out offensive similar to that of Kapoeta or Torit (that took place in southern Sudan late last year),” he says.

‘’What is happening right now is some sort of skirmishes taking place in western Upper Nile. I think, at least according to my knowledge, they have started to subside during the previous two or three days,” says Dirdeiry.

One positive point to remember is that the cease-fire agreement has reduced the level of fighting dramatically.

‘’I think we have to recognise that this is the first time for us, within the previous 20 years, to have any semblance of cessation of hostilities put in place.

‘’To talk about violations of that cessation of hostilities is in itself a healthy phenomenon because right now war is not the pattern in southern Sudan. It is the exception.

‘’Yes, there are some violations. We have made some complaints against the SPLA and I think also they have made the same. But it seems that the cessation of hostilities is holding, all in all,” says Dirdeiry.

The mediators, the regional Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), have also set up a channel of communication to discuss alleged cease-fire violations, which met later on Wednesday.

Dirdeiry thinks this is very useful.

‘’There is a mechanism to at least be informed about the violations and to try to do what we can do to address the situation,” he says.

The talks will last for about five weeks, with a break for the Muslim Haj on Feb 5.