Egyptian - Libyan efforts to maintain national reconciliation in Sudan

The Sudanese opposition said on Tuesday that Cairo and Tripoli have decided during the summit conference held between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gaddafi held last Wednesday in Marsa Matrouh to convene a national reconciliation conference in Sudan.

The spokesman for the Sudanese Ummah party in Cairo, Hassan Ahmad Hassan, said, "Two Egyptian- Libyan Joint committees were formed. One is political to ensure regional and international backing to convene this conference and the second committee is technical, assigned to organize this conference."

He said, "The location or date of the conference are not fixed yet," adding that it might be held either in Egypt or in Libya.

Libya proposed at the beginning of this month a reconciliation plan calling for an "immediate halting for military operations and media campaigns as well as holding a conference for dialogue between the government and the opposition as well as setting up a preliminary committee for this dialogue."

Khartoum welcomed this plan, while the opposition Democratic National Alliance, which brings together the northern and southern opposition groups, had proposed several conditions for implementation to be discussed during the meeting of the preliminary committee for dialogue to be held in Tripoli following the special summit of the Organization of African Unity on September 6 - 9.

Hassan said the meeting of the committee might lead to a "declaration of principles" that by its turn constitutes the basis for the reconciliation conference.

He added, "Libya and Egypt will try, on the sideline of the conference, to obtain the backing of the governmental commission for development and fighting drought and desertification in East Africa and the African Horn, IGAD, which sponsors negotiations between the government and the southern Sudan rebels.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian authorities have banned the activities of the Egyptian branch of the Sudanese organization in defense of human rights. A source at the Egyptian Foreign ministry said, "This organization is registered in London, and its office is in Cairo and has no legal status."

The spokesman for the organization's office in the Egyptian capital, Muhammad Hassan Dawoud, denied reports that the activities of his organization were banned.

The Sudanese News Agency later quoted Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Othman Ismael as saying that he had received a message from his Egyptian counterpart, Amr Moussa, a message asserting that the organization's secretary general, Hamoudah Abdul Rahman, was told about the Egyptian decision to ban the organization's activities.

Sudanese opposition sources said the Egyptian decision came following the circulation of a videocassette in Cairo about slavery in southern Sudan.

Dawoud said, "The said video cassette is documented and was shot in Bahr al-Gazelle about slavery and kidnapping of children by armed groups backed by the government."