Think-tank calls for unified peace process

Parallel initiatives designed to bring an end to Sudan's 19-year civil conflict should be unified, or a single new peace process created, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG). "The peace efforts made until now - by the northeast Africa regional body IGAD [Inter-Governmental Authority on Development], by Egypt and Libya jointly, and by Eritrea and Nigeria - have all been of a piecemeal character," ICG President Gareth Evans said in a statement on Tuesday introducing the report, entitled "God, Oil and Country: Changing the Logic of War in Sudan." "There has never been a single, multilateral, high level, sustained international exercise to put it all together. The time to do that is right now, with active engagement by the US and key Europeans," Evans said. The ICG report makes a number of recommendations, one of which being that a unified peace process should be built around "the vital element of IGAD's Declaration of Principles, namely self-determination, recognising all the room this leaves for creative negotiation on context, detail and timing". Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi at an IGAD summit meeting in January was charged with merging IGAD's own peace initiative, which began in 1993, with the joint Egyptian-Libyan initiative, launched in July 2001. After his first trip to Sudan as US peace envoy in November, former Senator John Danforth wrote to both Moi and Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, urging them to work together on a peace effort which would reconcile the two regional peace initiatives, according to regional analysts. Any unified peace process would need to be "energised" by the international community, with an ideal team to coordinate efforts made up of the US and key European states, including the UK and Norway, ICG said. The competing regional peace initiatives to date had often left the international community looking "painfully ineffectual", as the warring parties had been able to play one initiative off against the other, never addressing the fundamental grievances, ICG said. "Progress towards peace will require deeper, more direct international engagement in a process that the Sudanese parties take seriously," ICG's Africa Programme co-director, John Prendergast said. Comprehensive peace should be a "top priority", and should be "grounded in the restoration of democracy, which is the circumstance most likely to bring both fundamental human rights improvements and guarantees against backsliding on terrorism", Evans said in a statement. Full ICG report at www.crisiweb.org