“Real peace began with the signing of the Machakos protocol,” President Omar Hassan Bashir of Sudan said on state radio yesterday of his government’s pact with the rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) on Saturday. Though Gabriel Alaak Garang, who heads the SPLA, does not appear to share either this assessment or optimism, there is no denying that this is the best deal any rebel movement anywhere in the world could hope for from a government which still has the upper hand on the ground. The SPLA’s reservations and misgivings are not about the terms of the agreement but how sincere or committed the government in Khartoum will be in honoring them. This means that they know that President Bashir has gone to the farthest limits to accommodate the wishes and fears of his southern compatriots.
It should also be noted that it was not Bashir who initiated the conflict. He only inherited it. The unrest in south was there long before Bashir took reins of power in Khartoum. In fact what is going on in Sudan is the world’s longest-running war which has claimed two million lives so far. The civil war erupted soon after the colonial power Britain left the largest country in Africa in 1956. On one side there was an educated, technologically superior Muslim north and on the other side an underdeveloped Christian and Animist south. The changing ideological complexion of the governments in Khartoum only heightened the sense of insecurity and exclusion in the south. And discovery of oil added an economic dimension to what was until then an ethnic conflict. Oil, now Sudan’s biggest export, is located in the south.
Though there is still deep distrust between the two sides, rejoicing over Machakos will be neither premature nor unjustified. This for two reasons. First, the government has gone out of its way to declare its commitment to peace and a fair deal to the people of the south. The second is the intense diplomatic pressure from the US, Britain and Norway which led to the first face-to-face talks between the government and the rebels.
Following five weeks of negotiations in Machakos, the government and the SPLA rebels have signed a two-pronged agreement guaranteeing the religious freedom of the southern people and allowing them to vote on secession. The deal provides for a transitional period of six years followed by an internationally-supervised referendum in which secession would be an option. During the transition, a broad-based government would rule from Khartoum, but southern states would be given some degree of autonomy. Another major concession is that the mainly non-Muslim south will be excluded from the purview of the Shariah law.
Issues like power-sharing, well-sharing in southern oil fields, human rights and a cease-fire are yet to be sorted out. But there is no denying the government’s desire and determination to put an end to a tragic chapter in the history of the nation. And there is the international interest to see that Sudan does not collapse into Somalia-like chaos. So let us hope that the next round of talks, scheduled for mid-August, will lead to a comprehensive peace agreement.
President Bashir has described the Machakos protocol as a “basic step on the correct path for stopping the war.” Stopping the war is only the first step. The most important thing is to maintain peace. For this, Bashir has to work for and ensure a northern consensus behind any deal or agreement he signs with the southern rebels. This is the only way to prevent a future government breaking the terms of the agreement with the south.
