Washington, DC — A claim by the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) that they now have a mandate to represent three areas in the center of the country, may delay peace talks scheduled to resume Wednesday in Nairobi.
According to news reports from the region, the Angasana area of Blue Nile Province, the Abyei area of West Kordofan, and the Nuba Mountain area of Southern Kordofan have been placed on the agenda as the first item of business by the Kenyan mediator of the talks, General Lazaro Sumbeiywo.
Sudan's Al-Anba newspaper, reports Sumbeiywo as saying that the three areas were the "number one issue for the talks". According to the paper, Sumbeiywo said the three zones had been beset by years of fighting and had to be discussed before a comprehensive agreement could be reached.
But Sudan's government said Tuesday that it had not agreed to this when the talks broke for Christmas and the Kenyan elections on November 18, and that they would not attend the meeting, Wednesday, if it was now on the agenda. "We are not going," the charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, Muhammad Ahmed Dirdeiry, told Reuters News Agency.
According to Al-Anba, Sudan's Foreign Minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail said: "Contacts are still underway between the Sudanese Peace Advisory office and the secretariat of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), but the issues and the dates" had not been decided.
However an SPLM/A spokesman said he still believes the negotiations will resume as planned. "We have had no communication from mediators to the contrary."
Although the Government of Sudan controls and administers most of the three disputed areas, the SPLM/A asserts it has wide support from opponents of the government there to represent them at the next round of peace talks. Most of those living in the region do not speak Arabic or share the Muslim culture and faith of most of those in government.
Commitment to peace
Whether the argument derails the peace talks, intended to end 19 years of civil war, remains to be seen. Despite periodic clashes between SPLM/A rebels and government troops, both sides and many observers and analysts have expressed optimism that the next round of talks would go ahead. Both sides have shown a serious effort to resolve difficult issues. "We are closer today than we have been ever," said one U.S. official closely involved with the talks.
When the talks adjourned in November, Sudan's government and the SPLM/A had both signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to a six-year "Interim Period" in which elections to establish a "Government of National Unity" would be held, to the creation of a bicameral national legislature, and to equitable representation for southerners in a reformed civil service and governing cabinet.
So while the specifics of power sharing and wealth sharing still remain to be worked out, "it's definitely better. I wouldn't say we're about to close in on a deal yet but the positions are closer," said Sayed El Khatib, Director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Khartoum, during an interview with allAfrica.com last month.
"On our side, we have made significant compromises," said Nhial Deng Nhial of the SPLM/A, also in a December interview.
Both men were in Washington in mid-December - Mr. Sayed as a spokesman for a Government of Sudan delegation, and Mr. Nhial leading an SPLM/A delegation - at the invitation of the State Department for "workshops" aimed at easing the way back to the peace table this month.
"It is clear to us that the [Bush] administration and members of Congress would like to see an end to the war, would like to see a peace agreement as soon as possible," said Nhial.
Both the Government of Sudan and the SPLM/A acknowledge that pressure from Washington has helped push them towards agreement at the Machakos talks in Kenya. There has also been African pressure, especially Igad which groups the East African and Horn of Africa nations. In an era of Nepad, and ambitiously seeking investment and a new African Union, the continent has become embarrassed by a war that has cost two million lives.
Internal pressures
Both the government of Sudan and the SPLM/A also face powerful internal pressures beginning with the exhaustion and disenchantment with the decades-long war among the populations each claims to represent.
The need to exploit Sudan's huge oil resources and shake off punishing sanctions have also helped bring the government to the table. For its part, the SPLA calculates that with new, powerful friends in the West, especially inside the United States Congress and among evangelical Christians, this is the ideal moment to wring the maximum from negotiations.
There is also a kernel of worry within the SPLM/A that the "war on terror" may - sooner than later - bring the U.S. closer to Khartoum at their expense.
Both Khartoum and the SPLM/A leadership also feel pressure from more extreme elements in their own ranks. Khartoum is split between hardliners wanting to crush the SPLM/A through war, and moderates who want to cut a deal with the SPLM/A and get on with the business of tapping the country's vast resources. "[Sudan President]Bashir is caught in the middle," said one administration official, and this tension, "is very much of a dynamic that continues to unfold in Khartoum politics."
Within the SPLM/A there are extremists who think any deal short of independence for the South would be a sell-out and within the South there are regional rivalries that on occasion have broken into violence as bloody as any clashes with Government of Sudan troops.
But for now, the idea that the involvement of the United States offers the best opportunity for the South to gain virtual - if not total - independence, seems to have won the day.
The breakthrough July 20 "Machakos Protocol" reached in Machakos, Kenya. established a broad framework for a settlement that included a commitment from the government that the South would be permitted to take a vote on autonomy after the interim period, and remain exempt from the Sharia or Muslim law practiced in the North. "This is the first incumbent government in the history of the Sudan to agree while it is still in power, to the right of self-determination," says Sayed El. Khatib.
"Peace is coming soon," United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan told reporters shortly afterward, but his enthusiasm seemed premature. On September 3, rebels seized an army garrison during a battle triggered by government bombing of rebel positions and representatives of the government stormed out of the talks.
Toughest task lies ahead
They returned. But the Machakos breakthrough notwithstanding, the toughest negotiation lies ahead as the two sides try to apply the general principles of Machakos in practice. On sharing the national wealth, for example, a discussion that largely centers on oil, the SPLM/A says it wants 60 percent of oil revenues; the government offers 10 percent.
On another front, although Khartoum will probably be the capital of a newly unified Sudan, the current government says the city must be governed by Sharia law, albeit with protections for non-Muslims. That's unacceptable, says the SPLM/A.
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"One of the main problems we have in the Sudan is the concentration of political power and authority in the center of the country [Khartoum], says Nhial. But speaking for government, Sayed comments that "even now, before we sign something, they are grumbling about the fact that they are left out..."
Although the United States and Kenya have been the most visible external actors in the situation, there are other nations that may be crucial to a settlement. At the end of December, Nigeria attempted to bring together the first deputy of the Sudanese president, Ali Othman Raha, with SPLM/A leader John Garang in Abuja where both men met separately with Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. A statement by the Sudanese government even said that president Omar Hassan al-Bashir had agreed to it but an SPLM/A statement denied being aware that such a meeting was planned and Garang, though in town, never showed up for it.
Egypt, Sudan's neighbor to the North also continues to involve itself with the peace effort. Egypt is fearful of any outcome that might jeopardize its access to the Nile headwaters. So Cairo has been pushing a plan that leaves the present Khartoum government in place with provisions to bring in excluded parties.
Egypt was not present at the first two rounds of talks and the government says that it does not plan to participate in the upcoming discussions.
The U.S. special envoy to Sudan, John C. Danforth, no doubt keen to maintain pressure on both sides, told reporters in Egypt on Sunday that the United States might lose interest in the Sudanese peace process if the government and southern rebels fail to agree within six months on terms to end their civil war.
"There are other things going on in the world and if there is no progress in peace, the attention of the United States for sure is going to be lost," said Danforth.
