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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

KENYA: Peace talks to resume as planned

NAIROBI, 3 January 2003 (IRIN) - The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Friday said it was expecting the next phase of talks aimed at ending their country's 19-year civil war to resume on schedule, despite the recent hiccups, with the two warring sides accusing each other of breaking the terms of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) they signed in November.

Samson Kwaje, the SPLM/A's senior spokesman in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN he expected the negotiations, convened under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and adjourned in Kenya's southern town of Machakos in November, to resume in mid-January as planned, even though the Khartoum government was "polluting the atmosphere" of the peace talks.

Under the MOU, the parties agreed, among other things, to a countrywide ceasefire coinciding with the duration of the talks. However, both sides have recently accused each of attacking the other's positions during the agreed period of tranquillity. "I do not think this should affect the negotiations unless the fighting escalates - then I don't know what next," Kwaje said.

Sudanese officials have accused the SPLM/A of killing three workers at a construction site and injuring an unspecified number of government soldiers in an attack in the oil-rich western Upper Nile region (Wahdah State), according to media reports.

Gen Muhammad Bashir Sulayman, the Sudanese army spokesman, said the SPLM/A on Tuesday morning attacked the road between Ler and Bentiu, a government-controlled oil-producing town some 750 km south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the Associated Press agency reported

SPLM/A has, however, denied attacking government positions, and instead repeated earlier assertions to the effect that government soldiers had on Tuesday attacked rebel positions in Tam and Reang, both in the western Upper Nile region. "As far as we are concerned, it is the Sudan government that has violated the ceasefire by attacking us," Kwaje said.

On Thursday, a senior Sudanese diplomat in Nairobi, told IRIN that the SPLM/A's accusations had themselves constituted a violation of the MOU, which expressly prohibits both sides from engaging in media campaigns. Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, said a communications committee had been set up in Machakos during the talks, through which such grievances could have been channelled and discussed.

Kwaje, however, said he had been forced to release information to the media, because the Sudanese government had taken advantage of the long Christmas and New Year holiday period to attack rebel positions, despite the ceasefire. "It was a long holiday. There was no way the committee could meet during that period. So they took advantage of the holiday," Kwaje said.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

[ENDS]

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