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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| Sudanese rebel leader meets with Nigeria's Obasanjo |
| 2002-12-27 |
| Sudan's rebel leader John Garang, head of the main southern faction battling Khartoum's troops, arrived in Nigeria on Wednesday for talks with President Olusegun Obasanjo, officials said. Garang, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) leader, arrived accompanied by his wife and by Nigeria's former military dictator Ibrahim Babangida, said an official here who declined to be named. I think I got some e-mails from some of Ibrahim's relatives recently... The leaders's talk focussed on the crisis in Sudan, the official said without giving details. Peace talks in Kenya last August between Garang's SPLA and representatives of Sudanese leader Omar al-Beshir led to a groundbreaking agreement to grant the mainly Christian and animist south a six-year period of self-rule. A referendum would then be held to determine whether the region is to secede or stay united with the Muslim north. If they're going to have six years of self-rule, it's going to be hard for the northerners to fix that election, unless southern society collapses — which is probably what they're counting on, in fact. Babangida has already held prior talks with Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, as well as with al-Beshir, before heading to Abuja for the talks, the official said. Following the meeting, held at Abuja airport, Garanj and his wife left in the company of Obasanjo to the Nigerian leader's country home in the southwestern Nigeria town of Oca, where they were to celebrate Christmas. That's interesting. Nigeria, because of its oil and e-mail industries, represents — what's for Africa — an economic and military center of power. Garang seems to be making his most important alliances first, with the strongest state he can find, one that has a similar "Islam's bloody border" problem. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |