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Sudanese Opposition in "Last Chance" for Peace
CAIRO, June 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Sudanese opposition leaders opened a meeting here on Tuesday in what a spokesman described as a "last-chance" bid to coordinate African and Arab initiatives to end an 18-year civil war in Sudan, news agencies reported.
Leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella organization for the southern rebels and northern opposition groups, gathered here to focus on the east African IGAD initiative and a joint proposal by Egypt and Libya.
"This is the last chance to reach a concrete proposal for coordinating the two initiatives" because of new developments in the civil war and of time lost since an Arab proposal was floated two years ago, NDA spokesman Hatem al-Sir Ali told the French news wire AFP.
The southern rebels in the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the most powerful violent group within the NDA, have dramatically strengthened their position near the government oil-producing regions in south-central Unity State.
SPLA leader John Garang, whose forces have fought Sudan's Arab Muslim north since 1983, advocates a confederate state with two separate constitutions, so that animists and Christians will not be subject to Islamic law.
Khartoum insists on pushing for Islamic law throughout Sudan, and has rejected SPLA demands that it stop pumping oil as a condition for a ceasefire. The rebels claim the government is using oil proceeds to wage the war.
In August 1999, Egypt and Libya launched a joint peace initiative for Sudan, which calls for reconciliation among all Sudanese factions.
It follows one launched in 1993 by the Kenyan-based, east African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which seeks to reconcile the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army.
Garang has said the pre-existing IGAD peace drive will take precedence for the SPLA, unless the two initiatives are merged.
Garang was not present for the three-day conference of the NDA leadership council in Cairo, with some Sudanese participants saying his absence undermined the chances of its success.
However, SPLM/A officials said their group was well represented at the meeting.
Earlier this month, Sudan's government urged the southern Christian and animist rebels to "stop fighting and talk," as a pan-African organization censured the U.S. for giving aid to the Sudanese opposition.
Newly discovered underground oil wealth in the south of Africa's largest country has apparently further fanned the civil war, in which Western and Christian missionary humanitarian organizations, active in the south, 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.
The SPLA is made up of various animist and Christian tribes from southern Sudan and has been fighting the central government since 1983.
The war started by the rebels and ensuing famine and disease have claimed up to 1.5 million lives, with at least another four million displaced, according to humanitarian sources.
Meanwhile, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (COMESSA) this month criticized the United States for recently granting Sudanese opposition groups some three million dollars in aid.
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