CAIRO, 25 May 2003 — A meeting of the heads of Sudan’s three main opposition movements — John Garang, Sadeq Al-Mahdi and Mohammad Othman Al-Mirghani — kicked off in Cairo yesterday. Their talks are to focus on “the latest results of (peace) negotiations in Machakos,” Kenya, senior Umma Party official Mirghani Hassan told AFP. Garang represents the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which is holding peace talks in Kenya with the Khartoum government, while Mirghani heads the Democratic Unionist Party, and Mahdi the Umma Party.
This is the first meeting between Garang and Mahdi since the Umma Party leader quit the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella Sudanese opposition group that includes the SPLA and the northern opposition. The NDA is headed by Mirghani, who lives in exile in Cairo. On Wednesday, he said the SPLA-Khartoum peace talks in Kenya could not succeed because they sideline other Sudanese parties. Northern opposition groups are not taking part in the talks, which started in the summer of 2001 and aim to bring a lasting peace to Sudan’s 20-year civil war. Their fifth round ended on Wednesday.
Sudanese President Omar Bashir yesterday told his ruling National Congress party to prepare for a peace deal he believes is imminent with SPLA, the state newspaper Al-Anbaa reported in Khartoum yesterday. “While peace will have numerous gains, it will bring about burdens that require tremendous efforts that must ultimately result in unity after the six-year transitional period,” Bashir was quoted as saying at a party meeting Friday.
Bashir said the period that will follow the signing of a peace agreement, expected to be reached sometime this summer, with SPLA “will bring years of a jihad that are more difficult than the jihad of the gun.”
