Make or break for Sudan
The meeting in Kenya between the Sudanese vice president and the chief armed opposition is a new turn in the Sudanese peace process,
writes Gamal Nkrumah
In an unprecedented development, Sudanese Vice President Ali Othman Taha and John Garang, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the largest armed opposition group in the 20-year-old civil war, met in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The meeting, which began last Thursday and continued at press time, is the first ever face-to-face meeting between the two men who represent diametrically-opposed ideologies in Sudanese politics.
Taha, widely regarded as the quiet kingmaker in Khartoum, is noted for his espousal of a hard-line brand of militant Islam. Taha, a lawyer by training, is a disciple of the former speaker of the Sudanese Parliament and the leading exponent of militant Islamist ideology, Hassan Al-Turabi, now under house arrest. However, Taha became Al-Turabi's Judas, turning politically against his mentor and delivering him into the hands of his political foes.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Beshir broke ranks with Al-Turabi in 1999 after the latter's Popular National Congress signed a memorandum of peace and understanding with the SPLA in Switzerland.
Whatever his shortcomings, Taha remains an influential political figure in Sudanese politics. He is reputed to be the power behind Al-Beshir's throne in Khartoum, a fact that Washington has not ignored. During a meeting two months ago in London with United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner, Taha indicated that he is personally prepared to make sacrifices in order to facilitate the Sudanese peace process.
Whether this spirit will lead Taha to relinquish his position as vice president looks doubtful. The SPLA argues that under the terms of July's Machakos Protocols, Taha is obliged to step down and be replaced by Garang. The government of Sudan flatly rejects the SPLA interpretation.
Despite the fact that Taha oversaw Sudan's harbouring of Osama bin Laden and other leading Al-Qa'eda militants until 1996, the US indicated that it is willing to turn a blind eye to the past and deal with him if he delivers on peace.
Observers differ about the implications of the meeting between Taha and Garang. Some see the meeting as a major breakthrough in the Sudanese political impasse. Others view Taha's meeting with Garang as the symbolic gesture which at last gives the coup de grace to the crumbling edifice of the Sudanese government.
Much hinges on the interpretation and implementation of the Machakos Protocol, an agreement, or tentative memorandum of understanding, between the government and the SPLA, signed in Kenya. Among other solutions outlined in the protocol, southern Sudan is guaranteed freedom from Islamic Shari'a law. Still, the Sudanese protagonists have failed to reach a conclusive agreement on the finer details, such as whether Garang will become vice president. Both the government and the SPLA have so far refused to budge on key issues such as the religious and legal status of the national capital Khartoum. The SPLA insists that Khartoum, as national capital and federal territory, be declared a secular zone where the Shari'a laws enforced in the predominantly Muslim northern Sudan are not applied. The Sudanese government refused point blank to grant that specific request to the SPLA.
There is also disagreement over the political fate of three remote regions that the SPLA says are politically marginalised and economically disadvantaged and underdeveloped -- the Nuba Mountains in southern Kordofan, the Abeyei region in western Kordofan, and the Ingassena region of the southern Blue Nile.
Under the Machakos Protocol, the Sudanese government agreed in principle that the southern Sudanese hold a referendum on secession after six years of power-sharing in a transitional government of national unity.
"It is a make-or-break situation. If an agreement is not reached in the forthcoming round of peace talks then such an agreement will never materialise. The credibility of the Sudanese government is at stake. It is a question of now or never," Dr Mansour Khaled, special political adviser to Garang, said to Al-Ahram Weekly.
"The SPLA cannot make anymore concessions. The current SPLA position on the status of Khartoum, the presidency, the three disputed areas of Ingassena, Abeyei, and the Nuba Mountains, and the army is in itself a compromise. The SPLA cannot concede any of these points ... The SPLA and the Sudanese army, which is currently composed in the main of militias, cannot be amalgamated. The SPLA and the government forces must remain separate bodies until the political future of Sudan is determined in six years, after the referendum. Only then can both forces be merged," he said.
After the meeting Garang reiterated his support of the Sudanese peace process, but he refused to say what he is prepared to concede to Taha. "The parties have negotiated enough and the time has come for tough decisions," said Garang.
Those tough decisions may be made at this week's seventh round of Sudanese peace talks in Naivisha, Kenya, but they will officially take place between the government and the SPLA only.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella organisation grouping the SPLA and other mainly northern Sudanese opposition parties, is not officially invited to the Kenyan talks. "We in the NDA would like to have a bigger say in the political future of Sudan," Farouk Abu Eissa, the head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union and official spokesman for the NDA, said to the Weekly.
The Sudanese peace talks function under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), a regional organisation comprised of seven East African countries, including Sudan. Both Khartoum and the NDA have urged the inclusion of Egypt, Libya and other Arab countries in the Sudanese peace talks. The US is determined to restrict the sponsorship and mediation of the peace talks to IGAD.
Signaling the importance of the Naivisha round, Garang himself will head the SPLA negotiating team, a first in the 20-year history of the conflict.
The Kenyans, as hosts of the Sudanese peace talks, appear to be particularly upbeat about peace prospects.
"The whole world is putting pressure on Khartoum and the SPLA to reach a peace agreement," Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka told reporters in Nairobi before the meeting between Taha and Garang.
But the protagonists themselves appear to be less optimistic.
"The issues of the presidency, of wealth sharing, of security arrangements, of power sharing and the three conflict areas are the major issues that are outstanding," Garang said before holding the talks with Taha.
