For more than two decades now, Sudan, Africa’s largest country, has been plagued by a civil war, which has already cost an estimated two million lives. The war pitting Southern Christians and animists led by the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), against the Muslim North continues to elude national, regional and international efforts aimed at ending the continent’s longest running armed conflict.
The latest effort that ended in failure was a summit held last week in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and attended by Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and SPLA leader John Garang. The summit closed without a cease-fire agreement, the goal sought by all mediators. However, the two-day meeting hosted by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and opened by Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi agreed to appoint a permanent negotiating team. The leaders of Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti and Eritrea also attended. The IGAD initiative launched several years ago with no substantive results so far is overshadowed by an other one led by Egypt and Libya. But the SPLA insists it will only consider one initiative at a time and not on parallel basis. And the rebel outfit regards the IGAD as the primary initiative because it carries a declaration of principles.
The situation has taken a turn for the better over the past few weeks. It now seems the quest for a solution has shifted to a venue which only a few years ago would have been unthinkable: the United States. Until very recently, Sudan viewed the US as its main enemy vowing to teach Washington a lesson if it continues to pursue what Khartoum considers anti-Islamic policy. Sudan never forgave the US for the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory outside Khartoum that Washington claimed was producing chemical weapons. The US under the Republican administration of George Bush described Sudan as a human rights disaster.
With attention focusing on Washington, the two warring parties have said they want to see the US play a role in the resolution of the conflict. Sudan’s Foreign Minister Mustafa Othman Ismail who described the US role as very crucial welcomed the American administration’s signals of greater involvement in ending the civil war while urging a neutral and fair attitude. American-educated Garang, on the other hand, wants the US to involve itself in a situation to influence the course of events in a country led by a government he considers a threat to Western interests. Garang sees in the sheer size of Sudan (one million square miles in area), its strategic location with nine bordering states, an oil wealth that is being developed by countries not in good terms with Washington, and above all, an Islamic government in control in Khartoum, enough reasons for the US to step in.
During his recent African tour, Secretary of State Collin Powell said his country was “going to work hard to bring a cease-fire into effect “ and that he would appoint a special envoy to try to press the parties to re-energize the peace process. Powell as well announced that the US would send 40,000 tons of grain to both the government-controlled North and Southern Sudan in an effort to avert a looming famine. The US also has released some $3 million in assistance to the main opposition alliance in Sudan, the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella group of northern political parties and the SPLA.
Former Prime Minister Sadeq Al-Mahdi whom Bashir toppled in a coup in 1989 for failing to end the civil war, now joins the quest for a solution. Mahdi will visit Washington this week to urged the American administration to back a peaceful solution to the conflict. The former prime minister believes the US is capable of influencing all the parties concerned and of laying a mechanism for the implementation of steps agreed upon. Bush, says Mahdi, considers it necessary to review and change many of his predecessor’s policies.
The increasingly active US policy on Sudan is the culmination of growing pressure by a combination of evangelical Christian groups, the Congressional Black Caucus and the human rights organizations. A fierce campaign against Sudan has been going on over the past months with these bodies calling on the US administration to act against what they regard as religious and political persecution of Southerners.
Ismail said the Sudanese government has launched a counteroffensive to correct the distorted picture of Sudan in the US, especially among members of the Congress. Many of these, he argued, are acting on hearsay and were not aware or well acquainted with the situation on the ground.
Observers say the fact that the two warring sides agreed to meet in Nairobi for the first time in more than four years had raised some expectations that some progress might be achieved. Bashir and Garang did not see face to face but instead talked to mediators in separate rooms.
Talking tough on the SPLA on returning from Nairobi and accusing the rebel movement of insincerity and maneuvering, the Sudanese president said he refused to meet the SPLA leader because the latter had repeatedly avoided meeting him several times in the past under African mediations including South Africa. “I refused to meet with him (Garang) because three times in the past he refused to meet with me. Each time he would leave the venue of the meeting just before my arrival there,” the president told the state-run television.
At the latest summit, the dispute centered on two main contentious issues; separation of state and religion and the geographical boundaries of Southern Sudan to be recognized in any future cease-fire agreement. The two sides are deeply divided over whether the cease-fire should come before or after a peace agreement. Khartoum wants an immediate unconditional cease-fire that would guarantee SPLA control over areas it now occupies while retaining its weapons. The rebels, on the other hand, want any cease-fire to be linked to a final peace agreement. The government says the county’s constitution guarantees equal rights and freedom of worship for the Southern Christians and animists while Islamic Shariah would apply in the North. Garang insists he is not going to accept Shariah as the supreme law of the land. Instead he would propose a two-state system with two separate constitutions.
Many, including Garang’s allies in the opposition National Democratic Alliance made up of the SPLA and northern political parties are baffled by this shift in position. Since 1983 the year the rebellion first broke out, Garang has been saying he was fighting for a united Sudan. Now, says his allies, he has come up with the idea of two separate states; this would only lead to separation.
The discovery and subsequent pumping of oil from fields located in the Southern part of the country has added a new dimension to the conflict. Oil has brought in such countries as Canada, China and Malaysia which have substantial investments in both upstream and downstream operations.
The SPLA says it wants any cease-fire to be linked to a total halt to oil production and export claiming oil revenues are being used by the government to fund the war. Khartoum categorically rejected the demand. “This will never happen,” declared Ismail. Instead, he said, the government is ready to discuss a mechanism for a fairer and more equitable distribution of wealth.
