By IPS Correspondents
NAIROBI, Oct 24 2003 (IPS)

The American muscle has renewed hopes for a final peace settlement in the Sudan following this week’s visit to Kenya by U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

Powell’s participation at the Sudan peace talks in Kenya, under the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), indicates that the United States is taking no-nonsense to get the warring parties to sign a peace accord by December.

Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan and Somalia comprise IGAD, a regional grouping backed by the United States, Norway, Britain and Italy.

If signed in Dec., the deal will bring to an end Africa’s longest running civil war, which erupted in 1983.

“The people of Sudan have known hardship and devastation for too long. They are hungry and desperate for an end to this conflict. We must find a solution, this is an opportunity that must not be lost,” Powell said on Oct. 22.

He said Washington expected a comprehensive peace pact, not later than Dec. 31.

Rebel chief, John Garang, and Sudan’s Vice-President, Ali Osman Taha, viewed Powell’s presence in Kenya as a boost to the peace process. “If we muster the needed courage and show enough seriousness . we may have a peace agreement before the end of this year,” Taha pointed out.

Garang and Taha say they will do all they can to reach an agreement. “We will surmount all hills to attain peace,” said Garang, leader of Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Powell said Washington was keen on a lasting peace in the Horn of African country and that President George W. Bush had sent him to give impetus to the talks.

Both SPLA and government delegations have been meeting in Kenya for the last 18 months to try to end the conflict which has left over two million people dead.

Sudan’s wealth, which includes massive oil and gas reserves, uranium and gold resources, is too attractive to the United States to ignore.

A source within the Sudan peace team in Kenya say the United States is getting tired of the Middle East politicking and instability, and is seeking alternative sources of energy in Africa. Sudan, where oil reserves are estimated at 1.2 billion barrels, has taken a new profile in the American strategic interest.

“Sudan has much oil that has not been tapped and perhaps this is why the U.S. is coming in,” the source, who requested anonymity, told IPS in an interview.

Other Sudan watchers agree.

“Some of the top oil companies in Sudan are partly owned by American interests,” observes Mutahi Ngunyi, a political commentator in Nairobi.

The latest U.S. interests in the Sudan talks, Ngunyi says, must also be viewed from the perspective of America’s war on terror. Having a peaceful Sudan fits perfectly well within the American anti-terrorism agenda, he says.

Sudan, where Osama bin Laden lived before relocating to Afghanistan in the 1990s, is on the U.S. list of countries that Washington claims sponsor and harbour terrorists.

U.S. president Bush has invited Kenya’s president Mwai Kibaki and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni to Washington to discuss anti-terrorism measures. The two countries border Sudan and are key players in regional politics.

Ngunyi says Bush is trying to forge an anti-terrorism alliance with the two East African nations, which “are seen as a gateway to infiltration of (terrorist) influence into sub-Saharan Africa”.

Terror attacks in Kenya claimed over 200 lives and injured about 5,000 in 1998, prompting Washington to point a finger at Sudan as a suspect.

Since Sep. 11, Washington says Sudan has cooperated in the war on terror. The United States has urged both rebels and government to resolve the outstanding sticky issues of wealth and power sharing.

The major hurdle – security arrangement, deployment and size of army – was resolved Sep. 24 when Taha and Garang signed a security arrangement agreement. It spells out an integrated army of 24,000 troops: 12,000 from rebels and 12,000 from Sudan government.

“Security issue was the most technical; if it was solved, then an agreement on wealth and power sharing, among other issues, will be reached soon. We are looking forward to a warless country,” notes Telar Deng of the New Sudan Council of Churches.

Sudan’s conflict has been fuelled by animosity between Arab Muslim north and Black Christian south since the country’s independence from Britain in 1956.

Sudan, which is Africa’s largest country, enjoyed a peace interlude from 1972 to 1983, following the Addis Ababa Accord signed in 1972. The agreement was brokered by the All Africa Conference of Churches and World Council of Churches.

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