South Africa’s president appoints special envoy to Sudan

South Africa’s president appoints special envoy to Sudan

Tuesday 19 October 2010  Send

October 18, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The president of South Africa Jacob Zuma announced on Monday that he has tapped his political adviser, Charles Nqakula, to be his special envoy to Sudan.

South Africa special envoy to Sudan Charles Nqakula (Reuters)

The position of special envoy is a newly created one by Zuma.

“This is a strong reflection of South Africa’s commitment to assisting Sudan overcome the challenges that country faces,” said the presidency in a statement published on its website.

South Africa currently chairs the African Union Ministerial Committee on the Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development of the Sudan and has been actively engaged in efforts to ensure smooth implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between the National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM).

The ’Times’ online newspaper published in South Africa described Nqakula as a “long-standing communist and a former Thabo Mbeki [Zuma’s predecessor] loyalist….who has recently spent a good deal of time in unprofitable negotiations with recalcitrant African leaders in various countries of the continent”.

He currently heads the President’s Zimbabwe facilitation team. He replaced then Deputy President Zuma as mediator in the Burundi peace talks in 2005.

People from Sudan’s oil-producing south are now less than three months away from the scheduled start of the vote, promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south civil war — a conflict that left an estimated 2 million dead. The date for the referendum is under pressure, with the final voter register due to be completed on December 31, just nine days before the vote.

Most analysts believe southerners will vote to secede from the north, creating the world’s newest nation.

(ST)