NAIROBI, 1 April 2004 — Khartoum and Sudan’s main southern rebel group agreed yesterday, when they were expected to adjourn, to push on with their talks for about a week to thrash out issues standing in the way of a final peace agreement, mediators said.
“The talks are still going on and the two sides have indicated their willingness to continue with the negotiations,” chief mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo told AFP by telephone from the talks’ venue in Naivasha, northwest of Nairobi.
Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) leader John Garang, who resumed their fourth round of face-to-face talks on Feb. 17, were expected to finish this round on March 31, but decided to continue until they resolved the remaining issues.
The issues currently on the table are the administration of the status of three disputed regions — Abyei, Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile — as well as the sharing of political and administrative posts.
While the disputed areas are not strictly part of southern Sudan, the SPLA claims to represent the people of the three regions.
The conflict in Sudan erupted in 1983 when the south, where most people confess to Christianity and numerous traditional religions, took up arms to end the domination of the Arabized Muslim north.
Alongside famine and diseases, the civil war, now Africa’s longest, has claimed at least 1.5 million people and sent more than four million others fleeing their homes.
Since July 2002, when they struck an accord granting the south the right to a referendum after a six-year transition period, other deals have been reached on a 50-50 split of the country’s wealth — particularly revenues from oil, which is concentrated in the south — and how to manage Khartoum and SPLA armies during the interim period.
In a separate conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, more than 10,000 people are thought to have died in a year of vicious skirmishes between rebels and government-backed militia groups.
Indirect discussions began yesterday in the Chadian capital Ndjamena between the warring sides in the bloody conflict.
Chadian mediators and diplomats from the African Union held brief preliminary discussions with a Sudanese government delegation late afternoon at the Foreign Ministry in Ndjamena.
Neither side made any comment after the meeting ended.
The Chadian mediators, led by Foreign Minister Nagoum Yamassoum, were to meet later with representatives of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Movement for Justice and Equality (MJE), a rebel spokesman said.
A Sudanese government delegation refused to take part in the opening ceremony Tuesday in Ndjamena because it objected to the presence of international observers, but insisted it would join the formal talks.
The government delegation leader at the talks, Investment Minister Al-Sherif Ahmed Omar Badr, told reporters that the Chad meeting would pave the way for a comprehensive conference on peace, development and coexistence presently being prepared.
The unrest erupted in February 2003 with the rebels complaining that their region has been marginalized.
The fate of the people in the Darfur region has caused growing concern within the international community in recent weeks as the true scale of human rights violations and atrocities there has become apparent.
