Hi Kids-
From today's WSJ, encouraging?
News Article by WSJ on December 08, 1999 at 11:56:47:
U.S. Boosts Effort to Keep Sudan Opposition Intact
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 8, 1999
By DANIEL PEARL
The U.S. is stepping up its efforts to hold Sudan's opposition together,
amid an increasingly successful push by the Sudan regime to make peace
with its exiled opposition leaders.
The U.S. State Department sent a representative to a crucial
opposition-group summit that started Tuesday in Kampala, Uganda. U.S.
officials also have invited the opposition to meet in Washington as a
group for the first time, opposition figures say. The State Department
wouldn't comment on that.
Also, the U.S. is now pushing for regional peace talks to include
opposition groups from mostly Muslim northern Sudan as well as the
southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Army. The SPLA has been fighting
a 16-year civil war for a greater share of power by inhabitants of the
mostly animist and Christian south.
The swirl of activity may make obsolete much of the current Washington
debate over whether oil companies should be punished for investing in
Sudan, and whether the U.S. should supply food aid to rebel armies.
Prospects Look Brighter
"It's moving much, much faster diplomatically," says Alex de Waal, a
longtime activist for human rights in Sudan. "The prospects of a
resolution are brighter than they've been in a long time."
The Sudan war, which has killed several million people, is still a
tremendously difficult situation to sort out. Few people trust the ruling
Islamic regime, personal ambition hampers the opposition, and neighboring
Egypt periodically tries to quash agreements that might split up Sudan.
Internal divisions have widened in recent years within the opposition,
within the Sudan regime, and even among Africa experts in the
administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton.
A new twist came Nov. 26, with a surprise announcement that Sudan's
president, Lt. Gen. Omar el-Bashir, had reached an agreement with a major
Islamic opposition party on a plan to end the civil war. The 21-point
proposal, with the northern-based Umma party, is the government's clearest
endorsement yet of possible separation by the south. Though it gives few
details, the proposal calls for Sudan to adopt a federal system of
government and then allow southerners to choose, in four years, between
separation and "voluntary unity with decentralized powers."
Sudan is making an all-out push to lure back parties that have operated
largely from exile since the National Islamic Front helped Mr. Bashir
seize power in a 1989 coup. Even Gaafar Nimeiri, the pro-U.S. strongman
ousted in 1985, is now back in Khartoum, making weekly TV appearances.
Recently, the government has promised April parliamentary elections,
started releasing some political prisoners, and vowed to return property
taken from the parties. "All of them have contacts. They talk with the
government, they show their demands," says one Sudanese diplomat.
By splitting off moderate Islamic parties, the Sudan government may be
hoping to break up the National Democratic Alliance, a tenuous
eight-year-old opposition grouping to which the U.S. has given loose
backing. The grouping has been useful for coordinating military activities
between northern and southern groups, though the bulk of the fighters are
in the south, operating from land controlled by the SPLA. The alliance has
been cumbersome for talking peace. It has had to dodge the issue of
whether Islamic law should apply throughout Sudan, and stick to vague
promises of self-determination.
Stay or Go?
This week's opposition meeting in Kampala will help determine whether the
Umma stays in the alliance. If the Umma joins the Khartoum government, its
main northern rival, the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, would feel
pressure to go, too. "The Umma is already getting its people together" to
be part of the regime, and "the loser is going to be the DUP," complains
one DUP official. He said the DUP might join the government if the regime
breaks up and opens the security forces, charity organizations and
civil-service system to other parties.
To prevent splits, the U.S. is now encouraging the SPLA to invite northern
representatives into a regional peace initiative called the
Inter-governmental Authority on Development. The Nairobi-based initiative
has made little progress, but U.S. officials hope the opposition can form
a new joint negotiating team. Another possibility is that the opposition
will name a negotiating team to pursue talks sponsored by Egypt and Libya.
The Sudan regime would like to show progress toward national
reconciliation, in order to encourage further foreign investment in its
oil industry. Sudan, with Chinese, Malaysian and Canadian investment,
started pumping and exporting small quantities of oil this year, but has
suffered two recent pipeline explosions, for which the opposition umbrella
group National Democratic Alliance took credit.
Still, the prospect of southern independence won't be comforting to
companies such as TotalFina SA of France, which have kept their options
open to pursue concessions in Sudan. The SPLA contends the south is the
rightful owner of much of Sudan's oil.
Skeptics say Sudan can't be serious about letting the south go. The
government is accused of reneging on similar self-determination agreements
made with regional leaders in 1997. But some officials of the ruling
National Islamic Front are convinced the fractious south could actually
vote to stay. At the least, the regime is forcing a wedge between
southerners who openly support independence and others, such as SPLA
leader John Garang, who insist they want only a unified, democratic Sudan. |
