African_Prince
04-28-2005, 05:30 PM
Progress in Sudan?
Sudan: Darfur Peace Talks to Resume in May - AU Spokesman
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
April 27, 2005
Posted to the web April 27, 2005
Nairobi
Peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebels in the western region of Darfur are expected to resume in May, a spokesman for the African Union (AU) in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, told IRIN on Wednesday.
An AU mediation team, he added, had been holding held consultations with Sudanese government officials in a renewed effort to jumpstart the negotiations.
"The team briefed the Sudanese officials on the preparations made by the AU to create an environment conducive to the resumption of the Darfur peace talks in Abuja [Nigeria]," the spokesman, Nourreddine Mezni, said.
"The peace talks are expected to resume in May, although specific dates will only be finalized at the end of the current consultation," he added.
The talks will be a follow-up to the first round of discussions held at the end of February, with all parties to the Darfur conflict.
The AU team on Darfur, led by Sam Ibok and accompanied by the special representative of the AU chairperson for the Sudan, Baba Gana Kingibe, met with the Sudanese Vice President, Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, and the Minister of Agriculture and head of the government delegation to Abuja peace talks, Magzoub Al Khalifa.
According to an AU statement released on Tuesday after the meeting, Taha reaffirmed the commitment of the Sudanese government to go back to Abuja in order to reach an agreement to end the conflict in Darfur.
"The parties to the conflict are studying the protocol in order to reach agreement on the date, format and duration of the talks," Mezni said, referring to the framework protocol for the resolution of the conflict in Darfur that was submitted earlier by the mediation team to the Sudanese parties.
The AU team was scheduled to leave Khartoum on Wednesday evening to continue its consultations with the main Darfur rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, the Justice and Equality Movement, and other interested parties.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid, said on Tuesday that his government had adopted new policies to facilitate the activities of humanitarian organisations in war-affected areas, the official Sudanese News Agency reported.
Hamid said new mechanisms, including customs facilities and exemptions for aid organisations, would facilitate the transport of humanitarian aid to Darfur and other affected areas, while restrictive movement permits for aid workers would be cancelled, except for insecure areas.
In a related development, The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday that a planned cut in rations for close to two million people in Darfur would not happen because a donation of 14,000 mt of food had been received from USAID.
"We intended to cut people's food rations due to severe under-funding of non-cereal food-items," Peter Smerdon, senior WFP spokesperson, told IRIN on Wednesday.
"We are extremely appreciative of the urgent efforts made by the United States to prevent ration cuts at such a critical period," Ramiro Lopes da Silva, WFP's representative and country director in Sudan, said in a statement released on Tuesday.
WFP warned, however, that despite this stop-gap measure for the current non-cereals shortfall, the overall emergency operation in Darfur still remained severely under-funded. Of the US $467 million it needed for the Darfur operation, only $281 million had been received, leaving a 40-percent shortfall.
Worse still, the estimated number of people in need of food aid during the hunger season of July and August was expected to go up from 2.8 million to 3.5 million people - more than half the population of Darfur - due to war, drought and a breakdown of local coping mechanisms.
The war in Darfur pits Sudanese government troops and militias - allegedly allied to the government - against rebels fighting to end what they have called marginalisation and discrimination of the region's inhabitants by the state. Over 2.4 million people continue to be affected by the conflict, 1.85 million of whom are internally displaced or have been forced to flee to neighbouring Chad.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
Sudan Groups Agree On Unity
The Nation (Nairobi)
April 22, 2005
Posted to the web April 21, 2005
Mugo Njeru
Nairobi
Armed militia groups and political parties from southern Sudan resolved yesterday to put aside their differences and unite in the reconstruction of their country.
They agreed to come together under the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement as it implements the peace agreement signed on January 9 with the Khartoum government of President Omar el-Bashir.
For a YEAR IN REVIEW excerpt from the Africa 2005 guidebook, click here.
(Adobe Acrobat).
To buy the book, click here.
It was song and dance as delegates drawn from political parties, armed groups, churches and the civil society celebrated their new-found peace at the end of a three-day South-South dialogue conference at the Kenya College of Communications Technology, Mbagathi in Nairobi.
Their resolutions were witnessed by retired President Daniel arap Moi, the chairman of the SPLM/A Colonel John Garang and Khartoum's Second Vice president, Prof Moses Machar.
The conference agreed that the headquarters of the SPLM government would be the town of Juba.
For the stability of the region, they resolved, the new government to put in place an ethnically balanced police force to protect the people.
"In order to avert the danger posed by these armed elements, the participants urged all parties with armed groups under their control to adhere to the demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration of combatants," one of the resolutions reads.
The armed groups should then be integrated in the territorial army of Southern Sudan, it was agreed.
Those internally displaced by the war should be sought and brought back home while the Government of national unity should be made to compensate those displaced as a result of oil drilling.
It was also resolved that:
There be established an independent judiciary free from manipulation by the executive.
An independent electoral commission be established to educate the masses of their right to vote.
That the president of the SPLM should only serve for a two-year term of five years and successive ones should come from other regions apart from the first ones.
There be zero tolerance to corruption and sexual abuse be criminalised.
That the Government of National Unity be made to compensate those it abducted from Southern Sudan during the civil war and that leaders in government should desist from practising nepotism and tribalism in appointments and employment in the government.
As a way of ensuring that the peace agreement was implemented fully, all political parties were asked to ensure that draft resolutions were translated into all vernacular languages of Southern Sudanese people.
Mr Moi, who is the chairman of the the Moi Africa Institute which facilitated the conference asked the delegates to embrace the four pillars of truth, mercy justice and peace as enshrined in the bible.
He quoted Psalms Chapter 85 verse 10 which reads: "Mercy and truth have met together; peace and justice have kissed together," in describing peace resolve arrived at by the Southern Sudanese people.
"Truth brings out honesty, revelation, clarity and opens accountability," he said adding that "this is where reconciliation begins."
He said the leaders to be chosen must be those who have a history of compassion as the region required such people as it embarked on a process of healing.
"No child, woman or man should die because of leadership," Mr Moi said closing remarks.
Sudan: Darfur Peace Talks to Resume in May - AU Spokesman
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
April 27, 2005
Posted to the web April 27, 2005
Nairobi
Peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebels in the western region of Darfur are expected to resume in May, a spokesman for the African Union (AU) in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, told IRIN on Wednesday.
An AU mediation team, he added, had been holding held consultations with Sudanese government officials in a renewed effort to jumpstart the negotiations.
"The team briefed the Sudanese officials on the preparations made by the AU to create an environment conducive to the resumption of the Darfur peace talks in Abuja [Nigeria]," the spokesman, Nourreddine Mezni, said.
"The peace talks are expected to resume in May, although specific dates will only be finalized at the end of the current consultation," he added.
The talks will be a follow-up to the first round of discussions held at the end of February, with all parties to the Darfur conflict.
The AU team on Darfur, led by Sam Ibok and accompanied by the special representative of the AU chairperson for the Sudan, Baba Gana Kingibe, met with the Sudanese Vice President, Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, and the Minister of Agriculture and head of the government delegation to Abuja peace talks, Magzoub Al Khalifa.
According to an AU statement released on Tuesday after the meeting, Taha reaffirmed the commitment of the Sudanese government to go back to Abuja in order to reach an agreement to end the conflict in Darfur.
"The parties to the conflict are studying the protocol in order to reach agreement on the date, format and duration of the talks," Mezni said, referring to the framework protocol for the resolution of the conflict in Darfur that was submitted earlier by the mediation team to the Sudanese parties.
The AU team was scheduled to leave Khartoum on Wednesday evening to continue its consultations with the main Darfur rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, the Justice and Equality Movement, and other interested parties.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid, said on Tuesday that his government had adopted new policies to facilitate the activities of humanitarian organisations in war-affected areas, the official Sudanese News Agency reported.
Hamid said new mechanisms, including customs facilities and exemptions for aid organisations, would facilitate the transport of humanitarian aid to Darfur and other affected areas, while restrictive movement permits for aid workers would be cancelled, except for insecure areas.
In a related development, The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday that a planned cut in rations for close to two million people in Darfur would not happen because a donation of 14,000 mt of food had been received from USAID.
"We intended to cut people's food rations due to severe under-funding of non-cereal food-items," Peter Smerdon, senior WFP spokesperson, told IRIN on Wednesday.
"We are extremely appreciative of the urgent efforts made by the United States to prevent ration cuts at such a critical period," Ramiro Lopes da Silva, WFP's representative and country director in Sudan, said in a statement released on Tuesday.
WFP warned, however, that despite this stop-gap measure for the current non-cereals shortfall, the overall emergency operation in Darfur still remained severely under-funded. Of the US $467 million it needed for the Darfur operation, only $281 million had been received, leaving a 40-percent shortfall.
Worse still, the estimated number of people in need of food aid during the hunger season of July and August was expected to go up from 2.8 million to 3.5 million people - more than half the population of Darfur - due to war, drought and a breakdown of local coping mechanisms.
The war in Darfur pits Sudanese government troops and militias - allegedly allied to the government - against rebels fighting to end what they have called marginalisation and discrimination of the region's inhabitants by the state. Over 2.4 million people continue to be affected by the conflict, 1.85 million of whom are internally displaced or have been forced to flee to neighbouring Chad.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
Sudan Groups Agree On Unity
The Nation (Nairobi)
April 22, 2005
Posted to the web April 21, 2005
Mugo Njeru
Nairobi
Armed militia groups and political parties from southern Sudan resolved yesterday to put aside their differences and unite in the reconstruction of their country.
They agreed to come together under the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement as it implements the peace agreement signed on January 9 with the Khartoum government of President Omar el-Bashir.
For a YEAR IN REVIEW excerpt from the Africa 2005 guidebook, click here.
(Adobe Acrobat).
To buy the book, click here.
It was song and dance as delegates drawn from political parties, armed groups, churches and the civil society celebrated their new-found peace at the end of a three-day South-South dialogue conference at the Kenya College of Communications Technology, Mbagathi in Nairobi.
Their resolutions were witnessed by retired President Daniel arap Moi, the chairman of the SPLM/A Colonel John Garang and Khartoum's Second Vice president, Prof Moses Machar.
The conference agreed that the headquarters of the SPLM government would be the town of Juba.
For the stability of the region, they resolved, the new government to put in place an ethnically balanced police force to protect the people.
"In order to avert the danger posed by these armed elements, the participants urged all parties with armed groups under their control to adhere to the demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration of combatants," one of the resolutions reads.
The armed groups should then be integrated in the territorial army of Southern Sudan, it was agreed.
Those internally displaced by the war should be sought and brought back home while the Government of national unity should be made to compensate those displaced as a result of oil drilling.
It was also resolved that:
There be established an independent judiciary free from manipulation by the executive.
An independent electoral commission be established to educate the masses of their right to vote.
That the president of the SPLM should only serve for a two-year term of five years and successive ones should come from other regions apart from the first ones.
There be zero tolerance to corruption and sexual abuse be criminalised.
That the Government of National Unity be made to compensate those it abducted from Southern Sudan during the civil war and that leaders in government should desist from practising nepotism and tribalism in appointments and employment in the government.
As a way of ensuring that the peace agreement was implemented fully, all political parties were asked to ensure that draft resolutions were translated into all vernacular languages of Southern Sudanese people.
Mr Moi, who is the chairman of the the Moi Africa Institute which facilitated the conference asked the delegates to embrace the four pillars of truth, mercy justice and peace as enshrined in the bible.
He quoted Psalms Chapter 85 verse 10 which reads: "Mercy and truth have met together; peace and justice have kissed together," in describing peace resolve arrived at by the Southern Sudanese people.
"Truth brings out honesty, revelation, clarity and opens accountability," he said adding that "this is where reconciliation begins."
He said the leaders to be chosen must be those who have a history of compassion as the region required such people as it embarked on a process of healing.
"No child, woman or man should die because of leadership," Mr Moi said closing remarks.