http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/world/africa/sudan-and-rebels-under-pressure-to-find-path-to-peace.html?_r=0
Sudan and Rebels Under Pressure to Find Path to Peace
By ISMA’IL KUSHKUSHNOV. 13, 2014
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — After several postponements, negotiations between
Sudan’s government and rebels resumed here this week in an effort to bring
peace to the worn-torn country.
“We are hoping to finalize the negotiations that both sides have been
engaged in for a few years,” Thabo Mbeki, a former South African president
and the chief of the African Union’s mediating team, said Wednesday at the
opening of the talks.
Negotiations between the Sudanese government and the Sudanese Peoples
Liberation Movement are to focus on South Kordofan and Blue Nile, southern
states along the border with South Sudan. Fighting broke out in the two
areas in June 2011, a month before South Sudan seceded from Sudan, when
fighters once allied with rebels in the South refused to disarm.
The current round of talks is the seventh and begins as all parties are
being urged to reach a solution for Sudan’s seemingly endless wars.
“Both sides have been under very heavy pressure, especially from the
African Union, to engage in this process,” said Abdelwahab El-Affendi of
the University of Westminster in Britain.
“The success depends on this pressure and engagement being maintained.”
Negotiators and mediators seemed cautiously optimistic.
“We have come to complete what was agreed upon in the previous rounds,"
said Ibrahim Ghandour, the Sudanese government’s top negotiator.
Yasir Arman, the chief negotiator of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
emphasized the significance of the negotiations.
“This round of talks will be registered in history as one of the important
rounds, if not the most important one,” Mr. Arman said in a statement at
the opening session. He added, “It may be the last chance to salvage Sudan
through a credible constitutional conference.”
Representatives of two Darfur rebel groups — the Justice and Equality
Movement and the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army-Minawi faction — are
also at the talks.
Negotiations on Darfur, however, are scheduled for later this month.
Conflict in Darfur started in 2003 as rebels there accused the central
government in Khartoum of discrimination, negligence and marginalization.
The talks come in the shadow of recent allegations of a Sudanese military
buildup and increased air bombardment in South Kordofan and reports of the
rapes of 200 women in the town of Tabit in Darfur.
Sudanese Army officials deny that the attacks took place, and the joint
United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur said Sunday in
a statement that its investigators “neither found any evidence nor received
any information” regarding the rape accusations.
But the United Nations’ special envoy on sexual violence during armed
conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, said the presence of Sudanese forces might
have hindered the inquiry.
Gary Quinlan, Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations, said that Ms.
Bangura, in briefing the Security Council on Monday, “stressed that
although the rape allegations remained unverified, in her view it was not
possible to conclude that no sexual violence took place,” according to
Reuters.
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The United Nations estimates that the conflict in Darfur has killed as many
as 300,000 people and displaced two million. It says about 385,000 people
have been displaced there since the start of the year.
The fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states has displaced tens of
thousands of people to refugee camps in neighboring Ethiopia and South
Sudan.
Parallel to talks with armed rebel groups, the Sudanese government called
earlier this year for a national dialogue with opposition political
parties, in the aftermath of a protest last year that led to the deaths of
more than 200 demonstrators.
The Sudanese opposition has demanded wider political freedoms, the
postponement of the 2015 elections and the creation of a transitional
government.
In its national convention last month, however, members of the governing
National Congress Party endorsed President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has
been in power since 1989, as a candidate for next year’s elections. He is
wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of war crimes in Darfur.
Mediators are working to synthesize talks between the government and rebels
on one side with the national dialogue process on the other, in an effort
to bring about one comprehensive solution to Sudan’s political problems.
Some analysts close to the negotiations believe that the conditions exist
to resolve the conflicts in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur, and that
there is a great degree of agreement on both sides, but an absence of
political will.
Dr. Affendi of the University of Westminster was more specific.
“What is needed is concessions from Khartoum on national dialogue issues
such as elections, freedoms, etc., and pressure on rebels to agree to
comprehensive cease-fire,” he said.
Received on Fri Nov 14 2014 - 21:06:26 EST