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Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 September 1999 Issue No. 445 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 September 1999 Issue No. 445
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Mediating uphill
By Dina Ezzat
Cairo and Tripoli continue to say they are convinced that they should forge ahead with a joint effort to arrange a national reconciliation in war-torn Sudan, despite problems that surfaced in the past few days.
Amr MoussaJohn Garang
Only a fortnight before the scheduled convention of the preparatory meeting for the reconciliation conference, southern rebel leader John Garang, who arrived in Cairo on Monday for talks with some senior officials, including Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, added some serious obstacles in the way of fence-mending.
In a statement issued in Nairobi on Monday, Garang's Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement/Army said that the Egyptian-Libyan effort would be a duplication of the peace initiative made by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Garang's position, however, did not come as a major surprise to the Sudanese government, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of opposition groups or to Egyptian and Libyan officials involved in the mediation effort.
Garang is expected to have further discussions on the subject with Egyptian and Libyan officials.
Sources expect that there is a good possibility of combining the Egyptian-Libyan initiative with that of the IGAD. This, however, could mean that the preparatory meeting that was expected to take place on 13 September in Cairo could be delayed for a few weeks so as to give the Egyptian-Libyan mediation committee enough time to work on the new version of the initiative. The meeting is then expected to take place in the last week of October.
As one source told Al-Ahram Weekly, "The way Garang has been acting recently, his failure to show up at key reconciliation meetings, and the ambiguous messages he has been putting across through his envoys, were all indicative that he is not prepared to go along easily with this reconciliation effort."
"The IGAD peace process is the only viable process that should continue. There is, therefore, no need for parallel initiatives that will allow the notorious National Islamic Front [Khartoum] regime off the hook," the statement issued in Nairobi said.
Sources close to the mediation team deny charges that the joint Egyptian-Libyan effort is an attempt to get the Khartoum regime off the hook. The mediation, they say, is about confidence-building measures that should be taken by both the government and the opposition.
The ultimate objective of this initiative, according to Fouad Youssef, head of the Sudan desk at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, is "a full national reconciliation and a comprehensive political settlement that brings peace to all the people of Sudan."
But it is not just Garang who is shrugging off the Egyptian-Libyan mediation effort. Washington is doing the same.
Last week, the White House announced the appointment of Harry Johnston as special envoy for Sudan. According to a White House spokesman, the envoy will work on encouraging a national reconciliation on the basis of the IGAD initiative.
This initiative addresses the Sudan problem as if it were merely a south-north dispute. This is not exactly the case, because there are north-north problems as well. And this is where the Egyptian-Libyan mediation effort appears to be more comprehensive.
However, the White House statement made no reference to the Egyptian-Libyan bid.
Does this mean that Washington is trying to shunt the efforts of Cairo and Tripoli to the sidelines? Answered Moussa: "If the [US] envoy wanted to work jointly with the other initiatives, then let him do so. For our part, we will continue to work on the basis of our initiative."
Moussa added that the Egyptian-Libyan initiative "is still working, actively so." He also said that this initiative is "related to [the efforts made by the] IGAD" and the other countries working with the IGAD.
The Libyans are adopting a similar position. "We are very optimistic," said Suleiman El-Shohumi, head of the Libyan mediation team. He added that this optimism is legitimate because the Sudanese government and opposition seem to be inching closer towards a middle ground.
The NDA has a set of conditions for a dialogue with the Khartoum government. These are freezing the 1998 constitution, lifting the state of emergency, ending the ban on political parties, the release of political detainees and guarantees for the freedom of expression, movement and association.
The Sudanese government has said that it will not accept pre-conditions. The opposition responded that these were guidelines, and not pre-conditions. Now Khartoum is saying that it can talk about such issues as keeping religion and state separate, a non-central government for a united Sudan and various forms of political pluralism.
"We now have the minimum of a middle ground. We are working on widening this middle ground," a diplomatic source commented.
Next week, Foreign Minister Moussa will be meeting in Libya with his Libyan and Sudanese counterparts to agree on measures for expanding this "middle ground". The meeting, on the fringe of the ministerial conference preceding an extraordinary summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), is expected to consider ways of winning Garang over. And, if President Hosni Mubarak and Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir are to attend the summit, they will be expected to go into a three-way meeting with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to resume the endeavour at summit level. (see p.7)
