Will Sudan Keep its Agreement with the SPLM?

Is such an agreement, which could easily have been reached months ago, anything other than a cynically timed diplomatic ploy, designed to deflect international attention away from the regime's accelerating genocidal destruction in Darfur? Such questions can only be answered on the basis of recent history, particularly the history of the past two and a half years: from the time the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime nominally committed to self-determination for Southern Sudan (in the Machakos Protocol, July 2002) to the present apparent culmination of diplomatic efforts.

Most notably, this has been a period marked on Khartoum's part by relentless deceit, delay, obfuscation, reneging, mendacity, and bad faith. The regime has in particular systematically, continuously, and consequentially violated the cessation of hostilities agreement, signed with the SPLM/A on October 15, 2002. The regime has similarly violated the February 4, 2003 "Addendum" to the October 15th agreement, an "Addendum" necessitated by Khartoum's massive, authoritatively documented violations in the oil regions, especially during January 2003.

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One reason that Khartoum has delayed a final peace agreement so long is that there is no obvious way in which the proposed new "national government" (per the terms of the Power-sharing Protocol, January 2004) can accommodate SPLM views of genocide in Darfur. Nor is there any obvious way in which John Garang, Chairman of the SPLM, can take up his post as Vice President in a government that continues to be responsible for massive human destruction of precisely the sort that has defined Southern Sudan for so many years. Khartoum put off negotiations for many months (which it did without consequence), and in this time had hoped to find a final solution to its "Darfur problem."

But in fact, civilian destruction has accelerated---35,000 now die every month and total deaths number approximately 400,000 (see December 14, 2004 morality assessment at www.sudanreeves.org), even as the insurgencies continue to demonstrate their military determination and resilience. But there is also a growing desperation that has resulted in increased looting of humanitarian convoys, both for food and vehicles. Such actions must be unequivocally condemned, and it is incumbent upon the leadership of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement to halt such deeply destructive actions, actions inevitably most consequential for desperate civilians.

The National Islamic Front (NIF) government of Sudan (which came to power through a military coup in 1989, under Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmed Al-Bashir) was a radical Islamacist government which hosted and sponsored a wide variety of terrorist groups, including Al Queada of Osama Bin Laden. The NIF government of Sudan was one of the very few governments that recognised the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The Sudan government also maintained close and friendly relations with Saddam Hussain's regime in Iraq.

When the Americans reacted to the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington by overthrowing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the NIF government in Sudan began seriously talking about a cease fire with the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA). With the defeat of Saddam Hussain's forces, the fragile cease-fire in Sudan began to solidify into more serious peace talks.

The talk in Southern Sudan by both Church and SPLM leaders during 2004 had been that: should President Bush lose the November 2004 US presidential elections, the government of Sudan would go back to war and continue bombing the South. However, it was generally believed, by both Muslims and Christians, that should President Bush win the US elections, then the government of Sudan would have no choice but to abandon the war and finalise the peace. Many Christians in the bush in Sudan were holding regular prayer meetings for a Bush victory in America!

Now, with President George Bush re-elected for a second term in the US, the government of Sudan dare not risk a new campaign of bombing schools, hospitals and churches in Southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. The very real possibility that they could be overthrown — as their friends in Afghanistan and Iraq were — convinced Al-Bashir's government that, out of political survival, they must make peace with the Black South.

It would therefore appear that, as a result of the prayer, publicity, pressure, partnerships and presidential elections peace is finally coming to Sudan! The longest war, in the largest country in Africa, is — for all intents and purposes — over. Who would have thought that the final battles in Africa's longest war would have been fought in Afganistan and Iraq by American soldiers and in the US presidential elections by American voters!