KHARTOUM, 7 January 2004 — Sudan’s government and the main southern rebel group prepared yesterday to sign a wealth-sharing deal after weeks of hard bargaining but progress on a definitive end to the 20-year civil war is still halting.
Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and the leader of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, John Garang, are expected to sign the document today, officials from both sides said, but talks on thornier issues including power sharing could run into weeks.
After more than a month of tortuous negotiations in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, the two sides struck a surprise deal late Monday on a 50-50 split of non-oil revenue such as taxes and also agreed on a joint central bank and shared oil revenue, SPLA spokesman Yasser Arman said.
The wealth-sharing deal was a key component of talks aimed at ending Sudan’s war, the longest-running civil conflict on the African continent which has pitted the south, where most observe traditional African religions or Christianity, against the wealthier Muslim, Arabised north.
In 2002, Khartoum and the SPLA struck a breakthrough accord granting the south the right to self-determination after a six-year transition period.
But the two sides failed to conclude a comprehensive peace deal by the end of 2003 in line with a self-imposed deadline and still have to hammer out accords on a number of crucial outstanding issues.
The conflict, which has been fuelled and complicated by the discovery of vast oil reserves, has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced an estimated four million people.
“Now the principals will deal with the remaining issues,” said a source close to the government delegation in Naivasha, referring to power sharing and the status of three contested regions of Sudan.
The bulk of the wealth split was settled late last month, when it was agreed that the SPLA and the government would receive equal shares of revenue from the country’s 300,000 barrels a day of oil.
Government delegate Amin Hassan Omar was quoted by newspapers in Khartoum as saying that discussions would begin on power sharing today, adding that he estimated it would be “a few weeks” before a final peace deal is struck.
Observers say the government and rebels may easily reach agreement on the top political posts, but could get stuck on the division of senior posts in executive, legislative, diplomatic and judicial arms.
It has been provisionally agreed that Omar Bashir will remain president throughout the six-year period, with Garang taking over as vice president while Taha is to be given the new post of prime minister, reports say.
But senior Democratic Unionist Party official Ali Mahmoud Hassanain told AFP yesterday that the opposition would be against such proposals, instead supporting the creation of a state council representing different regions.
On the other sticking points, negotiators may be able to agree on the status of the Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile State but could face difficulties in addressing the dispute over Abyei whose inhabitants are predominantly members of the southern Dinka tribe and also include several SPLA leaders.
The SPLA claims those areas although they are not geographically part of the south, according to boundaries left over by the country’s former British rulers in 1956.
Despite progress toward ending the war with the SPLA, Sudan’s government last week accused neighboring Eritrea of backing a separate rebel group in the Darfur region in the west of Sudan. Eritrea denied the accusations.
The United Nations estimates that more than 600,000 people have been uprooted by fighting in Darfur, which analysts say could complicate efforts to strike a peace deal in the south.
Talks on the three disputed areas of Abyei, Southern Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains were continuing on Tuesday, delegates said. Formal negotiations on power sharing have not yet started.
Sudan has complained to the UN Security Council that Eritrea is arming and training rebels in western Sudan, the official Sudan News Agency said yesterday.
“The Sudan government on Monday presented to the Security Council and the secretary-general of the United Nations an official complaint against Eritrea for its instigation of, support for and financing of the outlaws in the Darfur region,” the agency said.
Two main rebel groups launched a revolt in the remote western Darfur region of Africa’s largest country last February, accusing Khartoum of marginalizing the poor, arid area.
The news agency quoted Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail as saying Eritrea was unhappy that Sudan’s other conflict — its 20-year civil war with rebels in the south — was nearing a peace deal, so it had begun to support the rebellion in Darfur. “Eritrea contacted the outlaws, set up training camps for them and supported them with arms,” the minister added.
Britain yesterday denied suggestions it was stoking the conflict between the Sudanese government and rebels in the Darfur region, adding it only sought to ease the humanitarian crisis there.
“The UK’s prime concern in Darfur is the worsening humanitarian situation,” Ambassador William Patey said in a statement in Khartoum faxed to AFP, adding that one million people were affected in what amounted to a “humanitarian crisis.”
The statement responded to a commentary in the official Al-Anbaa newspaper and other dailies accusing Britain of trying to internationalize the rebellion in the west to help southern rebels in their peace negotiations with Khartoum.
