Back to Machakos
More fighting erupts in western Sudan even as the Sudanese government and the country's largest armed opposition group head back to the negotiating table, writes Gamal Nkrumah
The fifth round of peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the country's largest armed opposition group, resumed in the eastern Kenyan town of Machakos last Friday. Wealth-sharing and security arrangements dominated discussions. Oil revenues, the Sudanese central bank and Sudan's currency also featured prominently in the talks.
A protocol was signed by the Sudanese government and the SPLA in Machakos last July when the government made major concessions to the SPLA. The Machakos Protocol was followed by the signing of a cease-fire agreement between the two Sudanese protagonists last October, also in Machakos. Major disputes have since been ironed out, and much ground has been covered, especially on the issue of self-determination for southern Sudan. Under the Machakos Protocol, the Sudanese government agreed in principle that the southern Sudanese would hold a referendum on secession after six years of power-sharing in a government of national unity. The two warring sides also agreed to a waiver on Islamic Shari'a in the predominantly Christian and animist southern Sudan.
Much controversy remains, however, regarding the precise nature of power and wealth sharing. It is hoped that the parties would work out solutions to the remaining sticking points during the current round of peace talks.
The Machakos peace talks are taking place under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), a regional organisation which groups seven East African countries, including Sudan.
After talks between the Sudanese government and the SPLA, Khartoum agreed to allow humanitarian relief and aid shipments to resume through river and land routes. Shipments between the river port of Kosti in northern Sudan and the southern hub of Juba resumed.
Excluded from the peace talks, the Sudanese umbrella opposition organisation, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), nevertheless sent a team of observers to Kenya. The NDA includes the SPLA and the main political parties of the Sudanese northern opposition groups except for the Umma Party, headed by former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadig Al-Mahdi, which pulled out of the NDA two years ago.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki is delegated by IGAD to act as chief mediator and his special envoy to Sudan, Lieutenant General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, presided over the Machakos talks. While IGAD officially sponsors the Sudan peace talks, behind the scenes Washington is the real driving force behind the current negotiations. The administration of US President George W Bush, with its special interest in oil, is particularly keen to tap Sudan's newly-found vast oil reserves. Peace in Sudan is a prerequisite for the successful exploitation of oil.
"The US is stepping up the pressure on both the Sudanese government and the SPLA to conclude a lasting peace agreement," Farouk Abu Eissa, the head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union and official spokesman for the NDA, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Abu Eissa said that with the US presidential elections coming up next year, the Bush administration is eager to show that just as it can wage war effectively in Iraq, it can also spearhead and bring to a satisfactory conclusion the Sudanese peace process.
The Sudanese government also held separate peace talks with the SPLA over the political future of the Nuba Mountains, Abeyei and Angassana regions. Although geographically part of northern Sudan, the inhabitants of these regions identify politically with the southern Sudanese. The SPLA commands a strong following in these three economically, politically and physically peripheral parts of northern Sudan.
"Much ground has been covered and there is cautious optimism in government circles that a peaceful conclusion to the Sudanese civil war can be effected in the next few weeks," Ambassador Hassan Abdel-Baqi, Sudan's representative at the Arab League, told the Weekly.
Despite the guarded optimism regarding the peace talks in Machakos, fighting erupted in Sudan's remote westernmost province of Darfur. Forces of the main armed rebel groups in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), not to be confused with the SPLA, attacked food warehouses in the provincial market town of Maleit. The fighting in Darfur has been exacerbated in recent years by the severe and persistent drought and attendant famines that have ravaged one of Sudan's poorest and least developed regions, fuelling the traditional struggle for grazing rights between nomadic Arabised tribes and indigenous, settled agriculturist non-Arab ethnic groups.
The SLA, led by Mani Arkoi Minawi, claimed responsibility for the deaths of 25 Sudanese troops and threatened to step up the struggle against the Sudanese authorities. "This is just one of the many surprises in store for the government," warned SLA leader Minawi.
The SLA wants Khartoum to grant a general amnesty to its fighters and urges the Sudanese government and the international community to speed up the implementation of development programmes in Darfur.
