Rebels in south Sudan have launched a diplomatic offensive in Africa, ahead of November 30 peace talks in Kenya, as part of efforts to end Sudan’s 20-year civil war.
More than two million people, most of them civilians, have died in Sudan since the fighting between rebels and the Islamic government in the north resumed in May 1983.
The rebels, who are mostly Christians or followers of traditional African religions, have been seeking autonomy or independence from the Arab Muslim north since 1955, a year before Sudan attained independence from Britain. The war is also driven by competition over oil and mineral resources.
This week the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) dispatched five delegations from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to seek the backing of African leaders in the upcoming peace talks.
”We are briefing African governments about the peace process in Sudan,” Barnabas Marial Benjamin, who is part of a four-man delegation to southern Africa, said on Wednesday.
The delegation held talks with government officials in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. The itinerary of the four SPLA officials includes Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Other SPLA delegations have travelled to East, North, West and Central Africa.
Salva Kiir, who is second in the SPLA hierarchy after leader John Garang, led the delegation to North Africa. Earlier this week, he held talks in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, with Amr Moussa — Secretary General of the Arab League. The rebels have invited Moussa to attend the November 30 peace talks in Kenya.
Sudan is a member of the 22-nation Arab League, which has expressed concern about allowing the south to hold a referendum after a six-year transitional period to decide on whether to remain a part of Sudan, or secede.
It is equally unhappy with the breakthrough achieved in September, after a year of talks, when Khartoum agreed that the SPLA could retain its army in the south during the transitional period.
In addition, some of the rebels will be integrated into a national force of 24 000 soldiers drawn equally from SPLA and government troops. This force will be stationed in the south during the transition.
Exiled south Sudanese have welcomed these security arrangements.
”We want a southern army to protect the agreement during the transitional period. We cannot entrust the future of the south to the mediators who will, after all, not be there when Khartoum decides to renege on the agreement and things begin falling apart,” says Peter Joseph, a south Sudanese refugee in South Africa.
The history of relations between the north and the south, which accounts for 35% of Sudan’s population, is littered with broken agreements.
The failed 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement — which ended the first civil war that erupted in 1955 — is one of a litany of dishonoured accords. Under this agreement, a force of 6 000 rebel soldiers was supposed to be stationed in the south for five years, then integrated into the Sudanese army.
But Sudan’s military ruler, Gaafar Nimeiri, ordered the soldiers to be transferred north, sparking a mutiny three years later in 1975. From that point, relations between the warring parties deteriorated until the final abrogation of the accord in 1983.
SPLA delegations admit to mistrust between the northern and southern negotiators.
”We have overcome the security arrangement, which was the most difficult to negotiate. Wealth sharing and power sharing, which will be discussed in the next round of talks, are also difficult. But the most difficult issue remaining is the three disputed areas,” said Nhial Deng Nhial, leader of the SPLA delegation to Southern Africa.
This was a reference to the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and Abyei regions.
The SPLA has a presence in the three disputed territories, which are geographically in the north but whose people share ethnic affinity with the southerners.
Last week President Omar Hassan al Bashir told pro-government militias in the western town of El Obeid that he would never alter the Sudanese border inherited from the British colonial administration in 1956.
But, Nhial says Britain’s annexation of certain areas disregarded religious and ethnic realities on the ground.
”Abyei was transferred to the north by an administrative order. So we would also like the same administrative order to be issued, to return Abyei to the south.”
As politicians argue, international pressure to conclude a peace deal is mounting. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell travelled to Kenya in late October to urge the warring parties to ”conclude a comprehensive settlement no later than the end of December”.
Washington has said it will review its relations with Khartoum and start sending direct support to the SPLA, should the talks collapse. Negotiations are also being observed by Norway, Italy and Britain.
Church leaders in Sudan say they want the regional mediator, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), to avoid a repeat of events between 1972 and 1983. Igad stands accused of abandoning the south during this period, after a peace pact was signed.
”We do not want a short-term peace agreement. We are hungry for a lasting peace and we are pleading with the mediators not to quit the process in the event of a final agreement,” Emmanuel Lowila — programme officer of the New Sudan Council of Churches — said recently in Nairobi.
Igad, of which Sudan is a member, includes Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea. — IPS