Two Swedes to walk through southern Sudan to draw attention to 18-year civil war

["Nadia & Giovanni" <nadia.joe@tiscalinet.it>]

Two Swedes to walk through southern Sudan to draw attention to 18-year civil
war


News Article by AP posted on January 14, 2001 at 08:08:32: EST (-5 GMT)

Two Swedes to walk through southern Sudan to draw attention to 18-year civil
war

By SUSAN LINNEE
Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Two young Swedes say they will set off
Monday on a 40-day walk through war-torn southern Sudan, using
their passion for adventure to draw attention to the 18-year civil
war they feel has been largely ignored.

"It's the conflicts in areas where there is oil and economic
interests like the Middle East that get the attention," said Tommy
Larsson, 29. "This war is so big, but because it's in Africa, it
gets much less attention."

Larsson and companion Andreas Zetterlund, 25, already traveled
from Sweden to Sudan by motorcycle in 1999 after collecting 200,000
Swedish crowns (dlrs 25,000) to aid people in the south.

"We're not taking a stand against the government or the
guerrillas, we're against the war," Larsson said before heading
off with a private Swedish aid organization, International Aid
Sweden, to Malual Kon in northern Bahr al-Ghazal region from where
the two plan to walk 600 kilometers (375 miles) southeast to Mundri
in Equatoria region.

They will walk with camels and carry a satellite telephone, a
digital video camera and a laptop computer, which they plan to use
to update a Web site.

They said they will use the site to encourage people to add
their names to a resolution urging the government of President Omar
el-Bashir and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army to resume
talks aimed at ending the war that has resulted in the deaths of an
estimated 2 million people, most of them victims of periodic
war-induced famines.

The duo said they hope Sweden will present the resolution to the
United Nations.

Although Larsson is an evangelist and a member of a pentacostal
church in Sweden, he insists that the war, which first began in
1956 when Sudan gained independence from Anglo-Egyptian rule, is
not only about religion.

The war, which ended in 1972 but resumed again in 1983, is often
portrayed as one that pits black African Christians in the south
against Arab Muslims in the north. The reality, Larsson and
Zetterland, a university student in Jonkopping, insist, is much
more complex.

"I don't think it's a religious war; you don't only have
Christians in the south. But of course, it's about power, oil,
money, and then they use religion as an excuse," he said.

And since Sudan began producing oil in the central part of
Africa's largest nation with Canadian and Chinese partners, the
stakes have risen.

In September at the latest round of preparatory meetings for
often-postponed peace talks under the aegis of the regional
Intergovernmental Authority on Development, negotiators were said
to have discussed the separation of state and religion, the form of
administration in southern Sudan prior to a referendum on
self-determination and the sharing of wealth, especially oil.

The SPLA also wanted to discuss the inclusion of southern
Kordofan, Abiyei and southern Upper Nile regions where oil has been
located into the traditional south.

Khartoum insists that southern Sudan, which is the size of
France, is defined by boundaries at independence from
Anglo-Egyptian rule in 1956 and that southern Kordofan, Abiyei and
southern Upper Nile were excluded. The rebels say residents of
those regions identify themselves with the south.



_______________________
Perciò, ecco, la attirerò a me,
la condurrò nel deserto
e parlerò al suo cuore.
Le renderò le sue vigne
e trasformerò la valle di Acòr
in porta di speranza.
Là canterà
come nei giorni della sua giovinezza,
come quando uscì dal paese d'Egitto.
 - Osea 2,16.17 -