Nuba Vision
Volume 2, Issue 3, April 2003
Editorial: A
Critical Time Ahead for Sudan
Suleiman Musa Rahhal
The Sudan peace talks under IGAD auspices in Kenya have now reached a critical and crucial stage. Despite the fact that many issues have been discussed and some progress had been made yet we believe that, the road to peace still remain rough and dangerous.
In an attempt to speed up the peace talks the mediators organized a meeting on 2
nd April 2003 in Kenya between President Beshir and Dr. John Garang, leader of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLM/A) and this is the second meeting between the two leaders during the past ten months. In this meeting, they reviewed the peace process and reiterated their confidence in the mediators. They agreed to maintain the momentum toward reaching a comprehensive peace agreement and also reaffirmed their commitment to honour the agreement reached between the parties, particularly the Machakos Protocol of 20th July 2002.However, while the talks are now in a high gear but there are still some crucial issues remain unresolved, which could put the entire peace process in jeopardy if it is not addressed and settled. One of these hard issues is the question of the three marginalized areas of the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and Abyei. The two parties have spent most of their time fighting over these central areas and over who should control them during the interim period but they have no workable solutions to these marginalised areas. Both parties have denied the politicians and the civil society of these three areas from representation at the peace talks in Kenya, despite the fact that the Nuba and the people of Southern Blue Nile at Kampala conference strongly recommended their presence at the talks.
The first round of talks on the three contested areas which started on 4
th March in Karen under Kenya supervision ended with very "little progress". The best part of it is that the delegates from these areas were able to meet and discuss with each other the important issues and the root causes to the conflict. The next round of talks is to be held after one month. We fear that the time is running out to settle the issues of the three central areas. We believe that more time should have been given for the discussion until a solution is found before moving into power sharing and security arrangement.Nuba Vision believes that the issue of the three central areas has not been given enough time for discussion, given the fact of the complexity of these three regions, hence causing frustrations to the mediators. However, the issues of these marginalized areas must be resolved before signing the final peace agreement. It seems that the three central areas have been put into a difficult situation, as they have to choose either to be with the North or with the South during the interim period, which are two difficult options. The question we would like to ask the parties as well as the mediators if the decision had already been made to divide the country into two states: North and South? Where is the option for the unity then? What we see in the talks are concentrated only
on North and South while ignoring other regional issues. We believe such a solution will not bring a just and lasting peace for Sudan but it will be a recipe for more wars in the future. Any settlement based on resolving the North and South conflict alone is doom to failure because the Government in Khartoum does not represent the majority of the people in the North. Equally, the SPLA/M does not represent the majority of the people in the South. IGAD, must know this fact in mind, as it cannot afford to ignore the wishes and the aspirations of the majority of the Sudanese people.
The people from the marginalized areas have already shown their resentments and frustrations, because they have the feeling that their issues have been pushed aside and outside IGAD, which means it will remain unsettle. It will be quite a disaster if IGAD mediators and Troica ignore the issue of the Nuba, the people of Southern Blue Nile, Abyei, the Beja people in East and the people of Darfur in Western Sudan, who have been fighting not for injustices but for power sharing and wealth sharing too. They are fighting for establishing a new united, democratic secular Sudan that is based on citizenship and the bill of rights. If these rights are not achieved then any solution to the Sudan’s conflict must be based on a confederal system which means the country must be divided into six or more confederal states, and adopting the Switzerland model.
There is no much time left now, as one senior staff in the US Administration, said recently " You have two months window of opportunity and then that window will be closed". Therefore, the time is running out for the marginalized areas and for their issues to be settled. There is also fear that the parties could sign a half-cooked agreement before even discussing the other remaining hard issues. We do not know what implication the Iraq war will have on IGAD peace talks? However what is certain that something will be signed before the end of June, which means that the coming few weeks will be critical for the peace in Sudan.