Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | What Machakos should achieve

		19 - 25 September 2002 Issue No. 604 Region	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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What Machakos should achieve
A resumption of the Sudanese peace talks is expected, even as peace efforts seem deadlocked and the warring parties cannot bring themselves to discuss a cease-fire, writes Gamal Nkrumah

The protagonists are poles apart. The collapse on 2 September of peace talks in Machakos, Kenya, between the Sudanese government and the country's largest armed opposition group, the Sudan's People's Liberation Army (SPLA) opened up a can of worms and highlighted some of Sudan's myriad political problems. Power-sharing is proving to be a sticking point. Wealth- sharing and the separation of religion from the state are two other stumbling blocks.
The Machakos peace talks held under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority of Development (IGAD), a seven nation regional grouping of East African countries, of which Sudan is a member, established a broad framework for peace referred to as the Machakos Protocols.
Although contentious and contradictory, the talks were a beginning, highlighting the vital importance of promoting dialogue between the different forces in the country. By its signatories own admission, this must not be limited to the warring parties -- the SPLA and the Sudanese government -- but incorporate all the major political forces in the country, including the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella opposition organisation grouping the SPLA and other mainly northern Sudanese opposition parties. Moreover, none of Sudan's neighbours must be excluded from the multinational consultations determining the country's future.
Prospects for a resumption of the Sudanese peace talks look good largely, observers note, because the US has stepped up pressure on IGAD, the Sudanese government and the SPLA to reach a settlement by the end of the year.
Washington acts from the premise that Sudan cannot be left to its own devices, a course of action that exacerbated the turmoil already ravaging the sprawling country, Africa's largest. Additionally, Sudan is about to emerge as a major oil producer and exporter. The vast country is also potentially the breadbasket of the Arab world.
"All opposition forces must be involved in the peace process," Farouk Abu Eissa, the head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union and official spokesman for the NDA, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"The Libyan-Egyptian initiative must be amalgamated with the IGAD initiative," Abu Eissa added. This is one issue where there is complete agreement between the Sudanese government and opposition forces. Both sides believe that in addition to the IGAD countries, Egypt and other neighbouring Arab countries deeply concerned about the political future of Sudan must be involved in the Sudanese peace talks.
The official reason the Sudanese government gives for pulling out of the peace talks with the SPLA in Machakos is the capturing of the strategic southern Sudanese garrison town of Torit by the SPLA. But Sudanese opposition figures suspect that the government pull out was because of serious policy disagreements between the two sides. Khartoum warns that the fighting and talking cannot go on simultaneously and indefinitely. A cease- fire must eventually be signed, contends Khartoum.
The SPLA counters that it cannot sign a permanent cease-fire until the political differences are first ironed out and agreement is reached on a lasting political settlement in Sudan.
The Machakos peace talks foundered because of five major points of disagreement between the Sudanese government and Khartoum. Chief among these was the disagreement over the presidency. At Machakos, the SPLA insisted that Garang, as its leader, be made the president of Sudan for the first three years of the transitional period before the post went to Sudanese President Al-Bashir who would then preside over the country for the following three years. The Sudanese government refused point blank to concede to this formula stressing that Al-Bashir should be president for the first three years of the transitional period.
A second disagreement was over border demarcations. The SPLA recognises the 1952 colonial borders under which the south includes the Nuba Mountains and the southern Blue Nile. The Sudanese government, on the other hand, accepts the 1956 borders, which were put in place by the British colonial authorities just before they vacated the country. The main feature of the revised 1956 border was the incorporation of the Nuba Mountains and the southern Blue Nile into the north. Today, these areas are strongholds of the SPLA, hence its insistence that they be incorporated into southern Sudan as they were before 1956.
Ironically, the SPLA's northern opposition partners in the NDA side with the Sudanese government on the prickly border issue. The NDA wants a federal system with three southern states and six northern ones plus a federal capital, Khartoum. The NDA does not accept the north-south divide.
Oil is another bone of contention. The SPLA wants the government to be held accountable for misspending oil revenues, Sudan's major hard currency earner. The SPLA suspects that much of the oil revenue was squandered on the government's war chest. The Sudanese government strongly objects to having to account for the oil revenues.
Last, but not least, is the contentious question of Islamic Shari'a laws. A key SPLA demand is that Khartoum, as national capital, be a Shari'a-free zone. The Sudanese government insists that Shari'a law be enforced in Khartoum. An estimated two million, mainly non-Muslim southern Sudanese, have fled the fighting in the south of the country and taken refuge in Khartoum. They do not want to be subjected to Shari'a law. If the national capital is not declared a Shari'a-free zone, then the southern Sudanese will eventually opt for secession after the six-year transitional period.
The NDA insists on a complete separation of religion from politics in Sudan. Democratic transformation goes hand in hand with peacemaking, Abu Eissa explains. There is no place for the application of Shari'a law in the new Sudan they envisage since Shari'a leads to a theocratic state. Accordingly, the, predominantly Muslim, six northern states are to be Shari'a-free. It goes without saying that Khartoum rejects this secularist notion.

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