Sudan’s fledgling civil society organisations are demanding the setting up of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) as soon as the final peace agreement between the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army is signed.
The agreement, expected to be signed by the end of the year, seeks to bring to an end Africa’s longest-running conflict, which erupted in 1983.
The organisations, which met in Nairobi on Saturday December 6, under the New Sudanese Indigenous NGOs Network (Nesi), say such a commission would be a perfect mechanism for ensuring reconciliation in a country that has witnessed appalling human rights abuses.
More than two million people, mostly in the south, have been killed since 1983. About four million people have been displaced, and another half-million have fled abroad.
”The TRC will act as a tool for bringing harmony, co-existence and forgiveness among the people of Sudan,” remarked Suzanne Jambo, coordinator of Nesi.
Jambo said debate on the TRC has begun in earnest.
”We are educating the people about it. We already have a mechanism in place, like south-south dialogue, where we are trying to unite warring factions in the south, preaching about peace and reconciliation.”
Jambo’s remarks coincided with the arrival in Kenya of Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA leader Colonel John Garang for what could be the final round of peace talks.
The two men’s presence in Kenya has been described by Sudanese civil society as a show of commitment about ”reconciliation, including the idea of [a] TRC”.
”The SPLA supports formation of a TRC and we are going to negotiate with the government of Sudan. If they agree, fine. If they do not, we cannot enforce it,” Deng Alor, a member of the SPLA delegation said in a telephone interview this week.
But the idea of a TRC seems to be new to the government.
”I’m not aware about such a commission,” said a source at the Sudan embassy in Nairobi, who requested anonymity. ”What I know is that the two leaders are meeting to settle controversial issues in this round of talks that is very crucial and critical.”
Taha and Garang have been locked in a one-on-one meeting since Sunday December 7. They are expected to resolve difficult issues of wealth and power sharing, which have proved to be a major hurdle in reaching a peaceful settlement in Sudan.
Security arrangements, another obstacle to the peace process, were resolved on September 24 when the two leaders, meeting for the first time then, signed an agreement that spelled out an integrated army of 24 000 troops: 12 000 from the rebel movement and the other 12 000 from the government during the six-year transitional period.
Players in the peace negotiations, which began in Kenya mid-2002 under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), are hopeful that the current meeting will culminate into a concrete peace.
Igad comprises Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Uganda and Sudan itself.
”The meeting between the two leaders signals a commitment to end hostility between the south and north, and is a step towards achieving a lasting peace,” said General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, an Igad mediator.
A commitment to a peaceful Sudan was also displayed on Friday December 5 when Yassir Arman and Pagan Amun, both of SPLA, visited the Sudanese capital of Khartoum for the first time in 20 years.
”Before achievements of the ongoing peace talks, it was a punishable offence, a big crime for any SPLA leader to go to the government-controlled area,” said Alor, who is also governor of the SPLA-held Bahr el Ghazal region in South Sudan. ”This shows change of heart by the government, which is giving the Sudanese hope for a warless nation.”
Hopes for peace heightened when United States Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Kenya in October. While in Naivasha, he urged the warring parties to sign an accord by the end of this year. The US, Italy, Norway and Britain are Igad partners, observing the talks.
Sudan’s conflict has been fuelled by animosity between the Arab Muslim north and Black Christian south since the country’s independence from Britain in 1956.
Sudan only enjoyed an interlude of peace from 1972 to 1983, following the Addis Ababa Accord in 1972, brokered by the All Africa Conference of Churches and World Council of Churches. — Sapa-IPS