Beshir rebuffs olive branch

2007-10-14 18:10

Khartoum - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Sunday refused to receive a letter in person from former southern rebels detailing ways of resolving a crisis sparked by the southerners' pullout from the government.

Sudan People's Liberation Movement spokesperson Dang Goj said: "President Beshir refused to receive the letter that Riak Mashar, vice-president in the southern semi-autonomous government, was to deliver."

He said Beshir instead delegated the Minister of Presidential Affairs, Bakri Hassan Saleh, to receive the letter.

"For us this is a negative signal, an escalation and negligence of our demands," Goj said, adding that Mashar had travelled to Khartoum to personally hand the letter to Beshir.

Failure of troops to leave the south

The SPLM on Thursday suspended its participation in the central government, accusing Beshir's ruling National Congress Party of failing to implement a 2005 north-south peace deal that ended Africa's longest-running civil war.

The SPLM complained in particular about the failure of Khartoum's troops to leave the south, the lack of progress on resolving the status of the oil-rich province of Abiye and failure to allow the south to carry out a cabinet reshuffle.

The NCP rejected the accusations, saying the SPLM was to blame for the failure to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended 21 years of war between the Muslim north and Christian and animist south that killed at least two million people and displaced millions more.

- SAPA