CAIRO, 12 June 2004 — Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha has held talks here with one of his government’s leading political opponents, Egypt’s official MENA new agency reported yesterday. The discussions between Taha and Mohamed Osman Al-Mirghani, head of the Democratic Unionist Party, focused on the peace process in Sudan.
The agency added that Taha briefed the leader of the DUP, the second largest of Sudan’s traditional political groups, on the recently signed peace protocols between his government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). Taha was also said to have stressed to Mirghani the “comprehensiveness of the political solution in Sudan.”
MENA quoted Mirghani, who also doubles as head of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a grouping of northern and southern opposition groups, as saying dialogue between the opposition the government will continue in Cairo. He further called on “all opposition forces to return to Sudan and participate in the national dialogue,” MENA said. The deal does not, however, address the conflict in Darfur that erupted early last year.
Meanwhile, a group of rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army have unseated two of the SLA’s top leaders, a spokesman said yesterday. Amer Mahmud Adam Fadallah said that SLA leader Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nour and Secretary-General Mani Minawi were removed early this month. He said the decision to oust them followed a meeting of some 560 SLA members in northern Darfur, who unanimously voted in favor of a motion to remove Minawi and Nour from their leadership positions. “Minawi was the movement’s real leader; he led it single-handedly and in an undemocratic manner, therefore it was decided that he should be removed,” said Fadallah
He added that the meeting was chaired by Ali Hamid Nour Shoubar, attended by “political and military figures and took place at the rebel held Wadi Hawar area in northern Darfur.”
In another development, Sudan’s main rebel leader John Garang paid tribute to thousands of southern Sudanese who yesterday thronged to hear his promise of peace for a country wracked by 21 years of civil war in Rumbek.
Thousands of people crammed into the central Freedom Square to cheer Garang’s arrival, chanting “Welcome chairman, welcome president”.
