The latest round of talks to secure a lasting peace in southern Sudan began at Naivasha in Kenya on Thursday, amid fears that ”delaying tactics” would result in their suspension — an outcome analysts predicted would have ”tragic consequences” for the entire war-ravaged region.
An estimated two million people have died, and about four million have been displaced, in more than two decades of conflict. But several diplomats who have been monitoring negotiations between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLM/A) told the Mail & Guardian of concerns that the crisis in Darfur would overshadow the talks, and ultimately result in them being ”hamstrung”.
Earlier discussions on southern Sudan produced an agreement for southerners to rule themselves for a six-year period, following which they would vote for either unity with, or secession from, the north; that government troops would withdraw from the south and the opposing forces would eventually integrate; that oil revenues would be shared; and that southerners — who are mostly Christians, with some following traditional religions — would not be subject to the Islamic laws of the north.
But a final peace agreement allowing all this to happen has yet to be signed.
According to John Ashworth, a human rights monitor who has been in Sudan since the war started, two ”major” issues remain to be negotiated before a comprehensive agreement can be reached: the terms of a permanent ceasefire, and how the agreement is to be implemented.
In addition, regional and international guarantees for its implementation must be secured.
Ashworth said the Naivasha talks were likely to ”stick” on ”how exactly the army of the south is to be funded” during the six-year interim period.
Previously, the Sudanese government maintained that the southern authorities must pay for their own forces.
”Obviously, this would immediately relieve Khartoum of a huge financial burden,” said Ashworth. ”But there’s an inherent danger in this for the north: if they insist that the south fund its own army, they’re in fact recognising that the south is an entirely separate country, with its own responsibilities of governance.
”Yet the north has always argued against the ‘two countries concept’ and is paranoid that the south will eventually secede. It wants a united Sudan so that it can control the region’s supplies of minerals, water and food.”
The view is echoed by the Sudan Focal Point: ”If [southern Sudan] has its own taxation system and funds its own security services, it is a separate country in all but name,” the group said in its latest report.
Ashworth believed a major point of debate would be the size of the southern army.
”How many soldiers will eventually need to be disarmed and demobilised?” he asked. ”Some say southern Sudanese authorities will have to support as many as 200 000 combatants. What are they going to do with them all? How will they pay for them? How many will eventually have be integrated into a joint force? These are questions the negotiators will have to deal with.”
Analysts said it was ”essential” that the talks resumed with the participation of Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Taha and SPLM/A leader John Garang who, following talks in Naivasha in June, signed the peace protocols that paved the way for the round of ”final” negotiations.
But there were indications this week that Taha would not attend, using the Darfur crisis as an excuse to ”stall” the talks, a charge denied by several government representatives.
Ashworth argued that a comprehensive agreement to end the war in southern Sudan was ”crucial” to halting conflicts throughout the region — including Darfur and the insurgency in northern Uganda, where the Lord’s Resistance Army uses bases in southern Sudan to launch attacks on civilians in towns and villages.
”The government side clearly wants to slow the process down at Naivasha, because their aim is to cut deals with the SPLA and the rebels in Darfur,” said a diplomat in Nairobi.
”I think, though, that it would be best if a deal focusing solely on southern Sudan was concluded first … because then we’d have a reference point allowing for an easier solution to Darfur,” he added.
But, in the approach to this week’s planned resumption of talks in Kenya, the Sudanese government was preoccupied with matters closer to home.
Speaking from Khartoum, a member of a foreign mission told the M&G armed forces continued to arrest political activists in the capital: ”There are still roadblocks here, houses are being searched, and there is very tight security.”
The apparent crackdown on President Omar al Bashir’s perceived opponents followed his recent claim that his security forces had foiled yet another attempted coup. He alleged that the plot to overthrow him was led by supporters of jailed opposition leader, Hassan al Turabi.
A further pointer to Al Bashir’s deepening paranoia was his plea to Sudanese youth to ”train” to fight an impending ”American invasion”. He also accused the United States of training and arming rebels in Darfur.
”Not a good sign, given the heavy US involvement in the Naivasha process,” commented the diplomat.