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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 April 1999 Issue No. 423 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 April 1999 Issue No. 423
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Interview Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters No end in sight
By Mohamed Khaled
A Libyan proposal for a peace conference between warring Sudanese factions has been rejected by the main opposition group. But the group welcomed Libyan mediation and suggested amendments to Tripoli's proposal. For its part, the Khartoum government threw cold water on the proposed dialogue.
In his most recent speech to Egypt's Sudanese community during the Muslim feast, Eid Al-Adha, Mohamed Osman Al-Merghani, president of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella of Sudanese opposition, disclosed that the Libyan leadership had suggested a meeting between Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and a group of opposition leaders to be held in Tripoli on 15 February. But following an NDA consultative meeting, Al-Merghani advised the Libyan leadership that it was too early to have such a meeting. "The Libyan leadership has accepted our suggestion that, to start with, there should be a bilateral meeting with the NDA," said Al-Merghani. According to him, the mediation was welcomed by the NDA and will be discussed at an NDA meeting scheduled to take place "very soon" in Cairo.
He added that the Sudanese government should also accept that it is conducting a dialogue with the NDA as a political entity and not merely with individual opposition figures.
Al-Merghani affirmed that, despite some "minor differences" and "impurities" within the NDA, it is united and advancing firmly to achieve its main goal, which is the realisation of democracy and peace in Sudan. "Our fundamental commitment is that any settlement should be in favour of the Sudanese people," he said.
Inside Sudan, a senior official of the country's ruling party -- the National Conference (NC) -- recently called for the establishment of a mechanism for dialogue between the government and opposition, to be supervised by Vice-President Ali Taha. The grouping of Sudanese opposition parties inside Sudan welcomed the initiative, but insisted that it be sponsored by the president on the basis of his constitutional responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the country, rather than by the NC. The NDA said that any dialogue should be based on a memorandum submitted in December 1998 to Al-Bashir calling for his resignation and holding him responsible for the deteriorating political, economic and security situation.
Yet, only a few days after an atmosphere of goodwill and calls for dialogue had prevailed, Al-Bashir, in a public speech, dismissed the significance of such a dialogue and described opposition leaders as "not weighing as much as a mosquito's wing."
Following Al-Bashir's statement, Mohamed Hassan Al-Amin, secretary of the political department at the NC, denied that his party had ever suggested the establishment of a dialogue with the opposition. "We do not recognise the NDA as an opposition entity," he said.
On the opposition side, there was no surprise at Khartoum's change of heart. "The government's lack of credibility has continued to present a major hurdle to attempts to bring about a peaceful settlement to the political crisis in Sudan," said Ghazi Sulaiman, an opposition leader inside Sudan.
During his recent visit to Cairo, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi vowed to mediate between the Sudanese government and the opposition in order to put an end to the tragedy in Sudan, saying that the Egyptian government will join in the efforts. Some press reports indicated this week that an Egyptian peace initiative is under way. But the reports said that Egyptian officials are keeping their initiative secret in order to "make it successful and prevent the intervention of regional or international parties."
Last week, Foreign Minister Amr Moussa met with Al-Merghani, former Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi and Deng Alore, representative of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Moussa also met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on the sidelines of the Organisation of African Unity meeting in Ethiopia.
Maintaining Sudan's unity has always been a major Libyan and Egyptian concern. Libya's efforts are also motivated by Gaddafi's project of Arab-African unity, of which Sudan is a central point, being an Arab bridge to Africa and a country where both Arab and African ethnic groups exist.
However, in light of the complications surrounding the Sudanese crisis, the current initiatives, clearly have a long way to go. NDA's position is that the government should be overthrown in order to achieve peace and democracy, while the government does not seem to be willing to give up its one-party system and its strict implementation of the Shari'a law which is fueling the war in the south.
Alore told Al-Ahram Weekly, "Sudan's unity is strongly associated with the kind of regime existing in Khartoum, since it can either encourage or threaten unity. Our position is clear: as long as this government continues to exist and insists on Shari'a, we will be left with the option of a confederal state. We have a joint agenda with the NDA."
