Peace adviser condemns rebel merger agreement

The government's peace adviser, Dr Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, has described as "a negative step" the agreement earlier this week by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the Sudan People's Defence Forces (SPDF) militia to merge and conduct immediate military operations against government forces, Sudanese official radio reported on Wednesday. In an interview with Republic of Sudan Radio, Salah al-Din said this move, coming "at a time when the government is working to bring about peace and when the IGAD [Inter-Governmental Authority on Development] peace summit is being convened in Sudan", could affect the peace process, the report stated. In other respects, the agreement added nothing new, because the SPLM/A leader, John Garang, was known to be biased in favour of war, Salah al-Din added. The SPDF leader, Riek Machar, on Tuesday welcomed the agreement as "a new beginning" for the combined rebel movement, which is to operate under the name SPLM/SPLA and come under collective leadership, the Sudanese newspaper Al-Ayyam reported on Tuesday. According to the newspaper, Machar said that when he had severed ties with the SPLM/A in 1991, its goals were unclear, but that they were clear now. Garang told the BBC that he did not believe Machar's grouping would again sign its own peace deal with the Sudanese government, as it did in 1997. That agreement collapsed three years later. Machar belongs to the Nuer ethnic group, while Garang is a Dinka. Ethnic rivalry was one of the reasons for the original split of the SPLM/A in 1991, after which Machar created his own rebel movement, according to regional analysts. On Monday, Machar also accused the government of denying the people of southern Sudan the right to self-determination, and said the southern rebel movement was not against Arabs or Muslims, but wanted a nation for everyone, the report added. In a news conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Garang and Machar committed the merged movement to establishing a secular confederal or federal, democratic New Sudan, on the basis that unity was "paramount for the success of the liberation struggle". Regional observers said the agreement came after international and regional pressure on the rebels to present a united front, as well as internal pressure on the two movements. A conference held in Kisumu, western Kenya, in June 2001 of more than 200 traditional leaders, elders, women, civil society representatives and politicians from southern Sudan strongly emphasised "unity of purpose, unity of effort and unity of ideals" among southern Sudanese. Unity in the face of "a common threat", "clarification of the goal of liberation" and self-determination as "the central objective" had been constant themes at the conference, which was convened by the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC), sources involved in that meeting told IRIN. The Kisumu meeting also saw 72 Nuer leaders sign a declaration in which they called for the unity of warring factions of the Nuer people in southern Sudan, including the SPDF and the South Sudan Liberation Movement. The Nuer signed their Declaration of Unity in an effort to end exploitation by others of differences among the Nuer, and to allow them to perform their rightful role in "the liberation struggle of the people of southern Sudan", according to the nongovernmental organisation Tearfund, which part-sponsored the Kisumu conference. Machar said on Monday that the SPLM/A-SPDF merger would strengthen the rebels' cause on the international diplomatic and political front, enabling them to put their case more strongly. He also criticised the joint Egyptian-Libyan peace initiative on Sudan because it did not include the right of southerners to self-determination, Al-Ayyam reported. According to what the SPLM/A and SPDF called their Nairobi Declaration on Monday, the merged rebel movement reaffirmed the IGAD peace process and the Declaration of Principles upon which it is based, as "the most credible peace process that will bring about a just and lasting negotiated political settlement in the Sudan." The IGAD Declaration of Principles, agreed upon by the government and SPLM/A, includes reference to the right to self-determination of southern Sudan.