Little progress at IGAD talks

A regional peace summit on Sudan under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) ended in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 2 June, with little progress towards a solution to the civil war of 18 years standing. Both Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir and John Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), attended the same peace talks for the first time since 1997, but did not meet in person, news organisations reported. The two sides agreed “to redouble their efforts” to end the conflict, according to a statement issued after the summit meeting.

Bashir told the Sudanese press on his return to Khartoum on 2 June that “the summit did not reach the expected results in regard to imposing a ceasefire”, but that the two sides had agreed to set up a permanent committee in Nairobi to pursue dialogue, which was “a positive step towards peace”. Garang told reporters that a ceasefire was discussed, but not agreed, and that the summit had helped move the peace process forward, Associated Press (AP) reported on Monday. The SPLM/A leader said the fighting was continuing, and claimed that his forces had captured the town of Raga (8.28 N 25.41 E - population 35,000) in Bahr al-Ghazal early on 2 June, adding that the fighting would not stop until there was “a cessation of the exploration, development and export of oil”. The government confirmed an attack on Raga, but on 3 June claimed to have driven back the SPLA, according to media reports from Khartoum.

Progress was slow at the IGAD talks on Sudan, because there was a lack of agreement on the core issues: determination of the areas that constitute southern Sudan, and the boundaries of them; state and religion; the system of government in an interim period; and the sharing of wealth, Kenyan Foreign Minister Bonaya Godana told journalists in Nairobi.
Among the serious and long-standing differences between the two sides were the SPLM/A’s demand for a secular state, and its insistence that any ceasefire be part of an overall settlement rather than preceding such a settlement, according to diplomatic sources. The drive for oil revenues and territorial control over Sudan’s increasingly valuable oil fields had also become central to the war between the government and opposition forces, Amnesty International reported last week in its 2001 annual report. Another summit meeting, at which both Bashir and Garang were expected, had been scheduled for July, news agencies reported.