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Time for Sudan People's Liberation Movement and Sudan to Agree

The Monitor (Kampala)
EDITORIAL
September 8, 2003
Posted to the web September 8, 2003
Kampala
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army Chief Dr John Garang is in
Naivasha, Kenya, for crucial talks with Khartoum's First Vice President Ali
Osman Taha.
The talks, now in their fourth day, are aimed at reviving the faltering peace
process between Khartoum and the southern Sudan-based rebels.
The two leaders are trying to break a deadlock over "contentious issues"
standing in the way of a much-awaited peace accord. These are understood to be
issues of power-sharing and resource utilisation. Southern Sudan is rich in oil
reserves and the sharing of oil revenues is likely to generate particular
controversy at the talks.
There is well founded fear among officials and diplomats of the regional
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which is hosting the talks,
that the entire peace process could collapse if Garang and Taha failed to reach
an agreement.
The talks must not be allowed to fail. Negotiations are not easy, but so is
war. The civil war in southern Sudan, Africa's longest, has claimed an
estimated 1.5 million lives, while four million people have been displaced.
Garang and Taha owe it on the Sudanese people to stop this 20-year old carnage.
For selfish reasons, Uganda wants to see an end to that war because it has a
direct bearing on the security situation in the north. For most of the 17 years
the Lord's Resistance Army has wrecked havoc in northern Uganda, it has been
hosted, sustained and armed by Khartoum in retaliation for Kampala's support
for the SPLA.
Even today, after the restoration of diplomatic ties and signing of a protocol
allowing the UPDF to pursue the LRA inside the Sudan, reports still suggest
that links between Kony rebels and the Sudanese have not been severed
completely.
It would seem that one of the best ways to end the conflict in northern Uganda
is to make total peace with the Sudan, whereupon the LRA would be totally
isolated and left in the cold. This will only happen after the Sudan and the
SPLA have reached a peace deal.
We urge both sides to adjust their rigid positions and work in the interest of
peace and progress for the Sudanese people. We live in hope that a peace accord
will deliver peace to northern and eastern Uganda in the medium term.

   

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