IGAD talks threatened by Kapoeta seizure

The government of Sudan has warned that it may pull of out peace talks with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) over the rebel group's seizure - in a lighting attack on Sunday 9 June - of the garrison town of Kapoeta in Eastern Equatoria, southern Sudan.

The presidential peace adviser, Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, said the government would complain to the US about the rebel attack, because it contravened a truce (signed in December and due to expire at the end of June) covering the areas between Kapoeta, Pibor and Boma, and intended to allow for cattle vaccinations.

The SPLM/A has celebrated the seizure of Kapoeta as a disaster for the government and a major victory for itself, saying that it killed some 200 soldiers and seized vehicles, arms and food supplies. Rebel sources have also spoken of following up on the victory by attempting to capture the strategic, government-held towns of Torit and Juba.

The SPLM/A lost control of Kapoeta to the government in 1991, but said it had no intention of relinquishing control again. "Of course, we are committed to peace talks, but this will not stop us from continuing military operations," an SPLA commander, Oyai Deng Ajak, told the BBC in Kapoeta.

The Sudanese army had already pledged to reassemble its forces and retake Kapoeta, and there had already been several Antonov bombing attacks on the town, the report added.

Humanitarian sources told IRIN on Thursday of a shocking situation in Kapoeta, with bodies lying on the ground, and of a truck which hit an antitank mine, with an unknown number of casualties, in Kapoeta.

Foreign journalists were flown into Kapoeta, where they bore witness to the sight and smell of dead government soldiers lying in earthen trenches, with the SPLM/A in no hurry to bury them.

Atabani said Khartoum would ask the US to demand an immediate halt to SPLM/A actions, and that the seizure of Kapoeta could affect future peace talks and other agreements, according to Reuters news agency.

Peace talks are scheduled to open under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday.

During April, the US peace envoy to Sudan, John Danforth, said both sides had offered proposals to IGAD suggesting "a rethinking of previously held positions", and had thereby shown it was possible to agree on contentious issues and to permit international monitoring of the implementation of their agreements.

Yet there is not much hope held out for significant progress at the current round of IGAD talks, years of previous talks having produced little, especially as there were "no new ideas on the table" and no serious international pressure on the government or SPLM/A to negotiate seriously, according to regional analysts.

The Sudanese government has demanded that the SPLM/A "forego all of the military advantage which it has gained because of the illegal attack", and stop any other attacks in that part of the country.

Muhammad Ahmad Dirdiery, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, said Kapoeta was in a "Zone of Tranquillity" under an agreement brokered by Danforth, in order to allow the eradication of rinderpest, a claim which the SPLM/A has denied.

Dirdiery told the BBC that the SPLA had taken "undue advantage" of the period of tranquillity to seize Kapoeta, and that the US response would determine the nature of Khartoum's participation in the IGAD talks set for Nairobi.

Danforth said in May that the usefulness of outside intervention would depend on the willingness of the parties to the conflict to live up to any commitments made, and that any participation by the US should be reviewed continually in light of this. "A breakdown in the implementation of the four test agreements would bring into question the parties' commitment to peace," he added.

Meanwhile, a ceasefire agreement in the Nuba Mountains area of Southern Kordofan, south-central Sudan, has generally held, although it has effectively diverted government and rebel military forces to western Upper Nile and northern Bahr al-Ghazal, where fighting has intensified, according to media and humanitarian sources.