Issue No. 592
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27 June - 3 July 2002 Issue No. 592 Region |
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No talking shop in Nairobi
Guarded optimism over talks in Nairobi between the Sudanese government and the country's main armed opposition group has been dampened by renewed fighting in southern Sudan, writes Gamal Nkrumah
Talks between the Sudanese government and the country's largest armed opposition group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) are currently taking place in the Kenyan capital Nairobi under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a seven-nation regional grouping of east African countries, of which Sudan is a member.
Sudanese government officials have been meeting regularly with the SPLA in Nairobi, but with little progress. However, the current meeting still promises to be more than just another round of Nairobi talks. The United States is stepping up pressure on IGAD, the Sudanese government and the SPLA to conclude a peace settlement by the end of the year. While the Sudanese government appears to be optimistic about the results of the Nairobi talks, SPLA officials are less hopeful.
Meanwhile, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella opposition organisation grouping the SPLA and other mainly northern Sudanese opposition parties, does want to have a say in the country's political future. Cairo is to play host next Thursday to Pagan Amum, a high-ranking SPLA leader and secretary- general of the NDA. Amum, who is participating in the Nairobi talks, is to brief fellow NDA leaders of the northern Sudanese parties and the Egyptian government about the progress of the Nairobi talks.
"Both the Sudanese government and the SPLA are under intense pressure from Washington to end the war by November at the latest. American oil corporations are eager to exploit Sudan's vast oil reserves," Farouk Abu-Eissa, the head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union and official spokesman for the NDA told Al- Ahram Weekly.
Sudan, which has been on the US State Department's list of countries sponsoring terrorism since 1993, has been collaborating with US authorities in unravelling terrorist networks. The Islamist government in Sudan, which had given refuge to Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden for five years (1990-95), has since 11 September been at pains to distance itself from militant Islamist groups, and especially Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda network. Sudan's Islamist-oriented regime has in the past provided an ideological training ground for Al-Qa'eda, but today it is handing over intelligence files to the US authorities.
Washington is pleased with Sudan's about face, but insists that Khartoum must be prepared to iron out differences with the SPLA about the status of the oil-rich southern third of the country, redress its human rights record and institute radical democratic reform.
Still, Washington appears to have lingering doubts about Khartoum's motives. "Sudan's government must understand that ending its sponsorship of terror outside Sudan is no substitute for efforts to stop the war inside Sudan," US President George W Bush told US Congress earlier this week. "Sudan's government cannot continue to block peace, but make war; [it] must not continue to allow slavery to persist," Bush said.
Indeed, a halt to bombing civilian targets is one of four proposals made by US special envoy to Sudan, John Danforth, as part of a US initiative towards ending the country's 18-year-long civil war.
Bush's warning seems to have gone unheeded, however. The SPLA protested at the Nairobi talks that Sudanese government air force fighter jets bombed the town of Malual-Kan, an important relief centre for international agencies operating in southern Sudan. Four people were reported dead in the compound of the organisation Médecin Sans Frontiéres in the SPLA-held town.
The Sudanese government is still reeling from the blow of losing the strategic garrison town of Kapoeta to SPLA forces last week. "We have the best chance in years to end the tragic civil war in southern Sudan. Without a breakthrough in Nairobi, the conflict could worsen and ruin Sudan's chances for economic recovery and development," Professor Ahmed Abdel-Halim, the Sudanese ambassador to Egypt told the Weekly.
However, what most worries northern opposition figures, Egypt and other Arab countries is that a US-orchestrated deal between the Sudanese government and the SPLA will leave the northern opposition out in the cold. "There is a deliberate effort to sideline the northern opposition and to play down the importance of the Egyptian-Libyan initiative," Abu-Eissa added.
Another concern is that Washington appears to be keen that the so-called troika of the US, Britain and Norway work in conjunction with IGAD. A truce between Khartoum and the SPLA that was secured in Buergenstock, Switzerland, was sponsored by the US which supervised the peace talks in March.
"You can still talk and fight at the same time," Samson Kwaje, SPLA spokesman, said. The SPLA rejected the Sudanese government's renewed offer of a cease-fire in the south -- similar to the one in place in the Nuba Mountains -- on the grounds that it might entrench the government's military advantage.
Khartoum, meanwhile, plays host to a meeting of foreign ministers and senior officials from 57 mainly African, Arab and Asian member-states of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) which began on Tuesday. The Khartoum gathering comes two months after an emergency session of the OIC in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, and aims at polishing up the tarnished image of Islam in the West in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks on Washington and New York.
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