The Government of Sudan rejects a US offer to host comprehensive peace talks in Washington.
Instead of meeting with the opposition parties, key regional powers and European countries, and moving toward a just peace for the south of Sudan, Khartoum resumes its attacks on civilian and humanitarian targets.
Eric Reeves [September 15, 2000]
Smith College ereeves@smith.edu
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
In an effort to give a decisive push to the peace effort, the United States had proposed a Washington meeting of all the key players in the torturous Sudan peace process. This would have been a follow-up to the IGAD meeting presently scheduled to meet in Nairobi September 21.
What was Khartoum’s reaction to an unprecedented meeting that would have brought the northern opposition groups (the National Democratic Alliance), the southern SPLA/M, key regional powers, and European countries together for peace talks? “We reject this bid by Washington,” Khartoum regime’s strongman General Omar Beshir peremptorily declared. (Agence France-Presse news wire report attached)
Khartoum, increasingly confident that oil revenues provided by Talisman Energy and other partners in the Greater Nile project will allow it to effect a “final military solution,” has spurned what may be a singular opportunity to bring peace in the near term.
At the same time, the Khartoum regime has resumed targeting not only civilians in the south but also humanitarian relief. Most recently, Ikotos (Eastern Equatoria)—and site of relief work by Norwegian Church Aid— was bombed mercilessly yesterday (September 14). The report from the diocese of Torit is painfully detailed, and is attached here verbatim:
“The Sudan Government high altitude bomber, Antonov today September 14, 2000 at about 2.30pm Sudan time dropped 16 bombs in Ikotos, Eastern Equatoria. All the bombs exploded in civilian residence and displaced camps. 25 huts torched, and 56 gazed down.
According to our reliable sources, nobody was killed but two seriously injured namely, Moses Lony, a relief worker in the area, an altar boy whose name was not immediately established but reported to be a son to James Ohya. At the time we were receiving this piece the Antonov was still hovering around Ikotos. In another development, the same plane overflew Narus this afternoon but did not drop any bomb.
The Sudan government has continued to exercise their war muscles to unarmed defenceless civilians. This random bombings usually scare people from their villages as they are preparing to harvest their crops.
Jervasio O.Okot
Social Communications office
Diocese of Torit
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The Government of Sudan simply will not make peace until is convinced that it has no alternative—until Western nations cease encouraging Khartoum to believe that oil development and revenues will provide the military means of destroying the people of southern Sudan.
All who participate in this oil development, and all who invest in it, must bear responsibility for Khartoum’s brutal recalcitrance and savage destructiveness.
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Sudan rejects US good offices to bring about peace
News Article by AFP posted on September 15,
2000 at 08:35:37: EST (-5 GMT)
KHARTOUM, Sept 15 (AFP) — The Sudanese government has turned down a US proposal to move peace negotiations between the government and the armed southern opposition to Washington,
the press reported here Friday.
President Omar al-Beshir accused Washington of wanting to transfer the next round of talks, currently scheduled for September
21 in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, “without offering any specific peace initiative.”
***”We reject this bid by Washington,” he said, speaking late Thursday on his return from the UN Millennium Summit in New York.***
The Nairobi talks between the government and the southern Sudan
People’s Liberation Army are due to be held under the auspices of
the east African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), with Sudanese presidential peace adviser Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir named to head the government delegation.
The Sudanese press reported earlier in the week that the US has
proposed a much expanded meeting.
It wants the government side to hold talks in Washington with representatives of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — which groups the northern political opposition and armed southern opponents — in the presence of IGAD member states, the European Union and Egypt.
Sudan has been ravaged by civil war between north and south for the last 17 years.
The official Al-Anbaa daily Monday said the US proposal “backs
up, rather than replaces other initiatives.”
Two initiatives are currently on the table: one put forward by
IGAD, concentrating on finding an accommodation with the southern rebels, and the other a joint Egyptian-Libyan
reconciliation bid covering the north as well, much of whose political opposition is in exile.
Libya was not included in the states named to take part in the
proposed US reconciliation meeting.
Information Minister Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani was quoted in
Monday’s papers as saying Washington’s hostile acts against Sudan
disqualified it from a mediation role.