Riak Mashar brought in the Nuer movement behind him. He was one of the SPLA leaders but left them in 1992 and allied himself to the Khartoum regime. In 1996 he signed a political charter with the Sudanese government and in 1997 a peace agreement into which he led six other factions that had broken away from the SPLA. They spoke of “peace in the interior”. The Khartoum regime urged the SPLA to do as much. The agreement (that we criticized in VS N°53-54, 1997) promised a referendum of auto-determination for the South. No more is heard about this. This same agreement nominated Riak Mashar for the assistance to the President of the Republic and for the general Administration of Southern Sudan. This latter title implied that Southern States governors had to be recommended by him before they could be nominated.

In a letter to the Minister of Social Planning Riak Mashar had denounced a religious persecution against Christians (VS N° 84-85). He was worried about his safety and is said to have been victim of an assassination attempt on 6 February. Shortly before his resignation Mashar toured the European States apparently boosting the present regime. He next went to Kenya to consult his troops, in November part of them had announced that they were restarting armed warfare against Khartoum. From there he went to Southern Sudan. The departure of Mashar from Germany coincided with the time Tourabi seemed to have been completely ousted from his post (VS N° 86). According to "Africa Confidential" the Sudanese President Beshir is supposed to have told the Egyptian President that Turabi not himself wanted auto-determination for the South. It has to be remembered that Egypt fears the emergence of a new state that would entail re-negotiation of the sharing of the Nile waters. Mashar is said to have announced his return among the SPLA; no reaction from the organization. Mashar remains leader of a military troop stationed near the oil wells. He proclaimed his intention of being present at the next negotiations of IGAD. On whose side?
The 1997 peace agreement seems completely forgotten. If the official Sudanese press agency Suna is to be believed, when the French Ambassador, Mr Michel Raimbaud left, he declared that the signing of the political charter and the peace agreement by the Khartoum government with the Southern factions had opened the way to developing French-Sudanese relations.