IRIN Webspecial on the Sudan Peace Process

In the wake of the 20 July 2002 Machakos Protocol, and with peace talks between the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) expected to resume in Kenya in January, the route to this achievement is worth tracking.

Internal efforts at peace-making

Although the government of General Jaafar Nimeiri, who ruled the country for 16 years between 1969 and 1985, initially attempted to ignore the revolt of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in 1983, the rapid expansion of the conflict and the support the movement received from Libya and Ethiopia soon forced the north to take it seriously, says John Young, an expert on the Sudanese peace process.

Before serious moves towards peace could be made, however, the Nimeiri regime was overthrown in a bloodless military coup in 1985.

Following the coup, the SPLM/A had initially declared a ceasefire, and presented the incoming regime with a series of demands regarding the southern region. For it's part, the incoming Transitional Military Council (TMC) appealed to the SPLM/A and its leader, John Garang, to come to agreement and join the government, Young says.

According to some observers, an historical opportunity to end the war was lost at this time when, despite an offer of concessions by the TMC to the south, the SPLM/A refused to negotiate and fighting resumed.

Others, including John Young, attribute the resumption of war to the TMC's failure to accept the SPLM/A as a national party with an agenda for reconstructing the entire country; its rejection of the movement's demands to freeze the Shari'ah (Islamic) laws introduced by Nimeiri; and to end defence agreements with Arab countries or hold a constitutional conference.

The next internal effort at peace-building took place in a meeting between the Umma Party (the largest party in the north) and the SPLM/A in March 1986 at Koka Dam in Ethiopia.

Unfortunately, the fact that the other major parties - the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the National Islamic Front (NIF) - did not participate in the discussions served to undermine the achievements of Koka Dam, where agreement had been reached on the demands of the southern rebels, Young notes.

After general elections in 1986 the Umma Party leader and Prime Minister, Sadiq al-Mahdi, and SPLM/A leader, John Garang, met in July for more than nine hours, but the talks ended in stalemate. With this failure both parties directed their energies to achieving a dominant position in the war, according to Young.

The next real chance to achieve peace was the DUP-SPLM/A agreement finalised by their respective leaders, Uthman al-Mirghani and John Garang, in November 1988.

A statement issued by the two sides said that, in the period preceding the convening of a national constitutional conference, the Islamic legal code should be suspended; that military agreements between Sudan and other countries should be abandoned; that a state of emergency be lifted and a ceasefire implemented in the south.

Initially Sadiq al-Mahdi, who now led a coalition government with the National Islamic Front (NIF), opposed the DUP-SPLM/A accord, but, according to Young, he relented in the face of considerable popular pressures for peace, a broad-based government was formed and, on 3 April 1989, the agreement was endorsed by the national assembly.

Significantly, however, the agreement was opposed by the NIF, which then left the government.

As arrangements for the constitutional conference proceeded, a group of army officers with ties to the NIF - and led by Lt-General Umar Hasan al-Bashir, the current President of Sudan - seized power.

In the opinion of John Young, this action not only dealt a death blow to the DUP-SPLM/A accord but effectively ended internal Sudanese efforts at peace-making: subsequent peace initiatives were to be dominated by the regional and international communities.

Moreover, the 1991 overthrow of the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia - then the SPLM/A's foremost foreign supporter - and a schism within the rebel movement that led to the defection of Riek Machar and his Nuer followers in the same year, seriously weakened the SPLM/A, according to Young.

That confluence of events led to the government of Sudan increasingly looking to a military victory, and not peace negotiations, to bring the conflict to an end, Young told IRIN.

Part II�