Albright Meets Sudan Rebel Leader Garang
Reuters
10-DEC-97
By Manoah Esipisu
KAMPALA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
met Sudanese rebel leader John Garang in Uganda on Wednesday and called
for a new, anti-terrorist government in Khartoum, U.S. officials said.
''This meeting is to demonstrate our support for a (future) regime that will not let
Khartoum become a viper's nest for terrorist activity,'' a senior U.S. official said.
''Our basic policy is to try to isolate Sudan and contain the threat to
neighbouring states,'' said another U.S. official.
The officials, who declined to be quoted by name, described Sudan as the only
state in sub-Saharan Africa posing a direct threat to U.S. interests.
Earlier Albright told reporters after meeting Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni: ''Our two countries, as well as others, are deeply concerned with the
situation in the Sudan.
''I will be meeting with the leaders of Sudan's National Democratic Alliance
(NDA). Its members not only oppose the (Khartoum) National Islamic Front,
but are also trying to lay the groundwork for a new Sudan in which people of all
faiths and cultures can focus on rebuilding their country.''
Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which comes under the
Eritrea-based NDA umbrella, has been fighting the Khartoum government since
1982.
Two weeks of peace talks between the SPLA and Khartoum sponsored by a
regional group of countries ended in Kenya in November and are due to resume
next April.
During the talks Washington announced fresh trade sanctions against Khartoum
because of alleged human rights abuses and sponsorship of terrorism.
Albright is visiting Uganda as part of a week-long tour of Africa.
She was due to go to the north Ugandan town of Gulu later on Wednesday to
visit victims of an insurgency campaign led by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA).
Museveni accuses Sudan of sponsoring the LRA and Khartoum says Museveni
has long provided the SPLA with bases and materiel.
Garang wants a referendum on self-determination for south Sudan. Sudan,
divided between the largely Christian and black south and the Moslem and Arab
north, should become a secular state, the SPLA says. |
