|
Sudan And Rebels To Work Towards Ceasefire, No Deal Reached
NAIROBI, June 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Sudanese President Omar el-Beshir and John Garang, leader of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLA), agreed at a regional summit Saturday to work towards a comprehensive ceasefire in Sudan's 18-year-old civil war.
"The warring parties have committed themselves to work towards a comprehensive ceasefire agreement, but it was not possible to have it today," Kenyan Foreign Minister Bonya Godana said after a regional peace summit hosted by President Daniel Arap Moi.
Khartoum had unilaterally called a "comprehensive ceasefire" but it was rejected by the SPLA, which is made up of various animist and Christian tribes from southern Sudan and is backed by some Western organizations. It has been fighting the central Khartoum government since 1983.
Although Bashir and Garang agreed to appoint permanent negotiating teams to try to restart peace talks following a failed round last year, the summit has failed to secure a clear truce.
The war, famine and disease has claimed up to 1.5 million lives, with at least another four million displaced, humanitarian sources say.
Godana read a summit statement saying that the two parties had committed themselves to having permanent negotiating teams in Nairobi to carry on negotiations.
The one-day summit was held under the aegis of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), of which Moi is the chairman. Presidents Omar Guelleh of Djibouti and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda attended the summit along with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.
Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki, who had confirmed participation, did not show up. Opening the summit, Moi called on Beshir and Garang to "engage in sustained negotiation with greater determination."
According to an SPLA official this is the first time that the two, Bashir and Garang, have attended the same peace talks since 1997.
Moi acknowledged that the peace process had made only "modest progress" in recent years. The Kenyan president listed four main obstacles to peace: eligibility to vote in a self-determination referendum for the south; separation of religion and state; the system of government to be installed during an interim period, and the sharing of resources.
He called on the Khartoum government to make "a definite commitment to the separation of religion and state within an appropriate federal constitutional framework," saying this would "enable us to overcome one of the most difficult stumbling blocks".
Newly discovered underground oil wealth in the south of Africa's largest country has further fanned the civil war, in which Western and Christian humanitarian organizations accuse the government of rights violations against the armed rebellion movement.
With reserves estimated at more than one billion barrels, crude output is expected to rise to 400,000 barrels per day in the next few years from current production of some 200,000 bpd, according to estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
IGAD, which comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, has been pursuing peace efforts since 1993, but most initiatives have ended on the rocks.
The heads of state resolved at the summit to reconvene in the Kenyan capital in two months to review progress on the negotiations.
|
