No jamboree

The last-ditch attempt to resolve Sudan's constitutional crisis hinges on this week's Cairo meeting of Sudanese government and opposition forces, writes Gamal Nkrumah

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The Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-Army (SPLM-A) have called on the different Sudanese opposition factions to take part in the drafting of a new Sudanese constitution. Opposition groups angrily retort that they are not sufficiently represented on the 60-member National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC). They argue that members of the ruling National Congress Party are over-represented in the NCRC. Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Beshir and senior Sudanese officials refute the charges.

"The Sudanese government and the SPLM have bowed to the opposition's demands for more representation on the NCRC," Ambassador Hassan Abdul-Baqi Sudanese charges d'affairs in Cairo told Al-Ahram Weekly.

"The opposition was invited to draft the new constitution and they now have 10 members on the NCRC," he added. "The Umma Party and other non-NDA groups have also had the chance to be represented," Ambassador Abdul- Baqi said.

But members of the SPLM concede that the opposition parties have reason to be aggrieved. "It is true that the opposition are under- represented on the NCRC. This is unfair and must be redressed," warned former Sudanese foreign minister Mansour Khaled, a member of the 17-member committee that drafted the constitution. "There were seven SPLM members and 10 ruling party members on the drafting committee. It is an elaborate draft constitution that includes novel features that are unprecedented in Sudanese history," Khaled, special adviser to SPLA leader John Garang told the Weekly.

"Some of the most progressive features include a bill of rights, an independent Constitutional Court, and clauses governing the impeachment of the Sudanese president who must be made accountable to the Sudanese parliament," he explained.

Khaled said the new draft constitution would be agreed upon by consensus. He admitted, however, that it should maintain the integrity of the 9 January peace accord which ended 21 years of armed conflict between Sudanese government forces and the SPLA.

The National Democratic Alliance, the umbrella grouping composed of the leading northern Sudanese political groups and the SPLA, insists that the new constitution -- which is expected to enshrine a new set of rules -- must first be approved by all the different Sudanese political groups. The Umma Party, which withdrew from the NDA three years ago, strongly objected to not being well represented at the drafting commission.

Umma Party leader Sadig Al-Mahdi, former Sudanese prime minister, told reporters in Cairo that he rejects the draft constitution.

Ironies don't come much more bitter than those endured by Sudan's leading Islamist ideologue Hassan Al-Turabi, leader of the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP). As he languishes in jail, his party has issued a statement that they reject the draft constitution.

"We were not consulted and were not represented on the NCRC," Ali Al-Haj the Germany- based PCP secretary-general told the Weekly. Both the Umma Party and the PCP have declined to participate in talks taking place in Egypt between the Sudanese government delegation headed by Nafie Ali Nafie, Sudanese minister of regional affairs and the NDA.

In a separate development, the Sudanese government announced this week that it would cooperate with the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Last month, UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan handed over a sealed envelope to chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Geneva-based 53- nation UN Human Rights Commission drafted a report naming 51 suspected Sudanese officials that must be brought to book. The UN report noted systematic violations of human rights by local Darfur government officials and militiamen allied to the Sudanese government forces.

The Sudanese authorities stand accused of aiding and abetting Janjaweed militiamen widely suspected of instigating the murder, torture and rape of the indigenous non-Arabic-speaking population of Darfur. Sudanese authorities also dismissed UN Security Council Resolution 1593 which was severely critical of the Sudanese authorities and human rights abuses in Darfur. The two-year conflict in Darfur has claimed the lives of an estimated 180,000 people. The New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) this week accused the Sudanese government of trying to intimidate humanitarian relief agencies by arbitrarily detaining aid workers. The London-based Amnesty International concurred with Human Rights Watch.

The African Union has deployed some 2,000 troops to monitor the situation in Darfur. But international rights groups and aid agencies as well as armed opposition groups in Darfur have called for the deployment of Western forces with more sophisticated logistical capabilities.

Over the past few months, Sudan underwent a spell of achieving many of its goals. The Sudanese peace process is well underway: a historic peace deal was signed in January. But, there still remains a serious task at hand -- national reconciliation and reconstruction.

Northern opposition groups are miffed with the draft constitution and southern Sudanese factions are up in arms about being excluded from reconciliation talks in Kenya between the SPLA, southern Sudanese factions and the Sudanese government. "It was a Dinka-Dinka dialogue instead of a south-south dialogue," Major-General Paulino Matip of the South Sudan Defence Forces warned. He threatened not to disarm his militia and bitterly complained that Garang's Dinka people, southern Sudan's largest ethnic group, are poised to dominate post- war southern Sudanese political institutions. Rumbek, in the heart of Dinka territory, has already been designated as the new capital of southern Sudan.