Nations Human Rights Commission was opening its annual six-week session in Geneva, he also made clear his movement would be pushing at peace talks next month for a confederal state in the north and the largely Christian south. The Sudanese government "seeks to establish a theocratic, Islamic state throughout the country…Unless they change this position, it will be impossible to come to any agreement with them", Garang added. He said the Khartoum authorities had declared "jihad" — or religious war — against its non-Islamic opponents in 1992. A new round of talks involving the government and Garang‘s Sudan People‘s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which says it controls most of the south, is due to be held in Nairobi from April 20 to 25. The SPLM is political wing of the guerrilla Sudan People‘s Liberation Army (SPLA), and is linked in a wider opposition front with northern groupings, including the influential UMMA Party, in a National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Garang, who has been a key figure for around three decades in resistance in the south to Islamic rule from the north, said his movement wanted a "New Sudan" in which people of all faiths would be treated equally. If Khartoum could not accept that, he said, confederation was the best alternative. Garang, expected to address the Human Rights Commission on the situation in his country, said the SPLM and the NDA had already set up civil administrations in the areas they controlled, including parts of the north. "As much as possible, we are establishing good governance," he said, but Sudanese forces were working to destroy such administrations, bombing and strafing villages and even attacking hospitals. Garang accused the authorities in Khartoum of using food deliveries from international aid agencies as "a weapon of war", limiting access to the south where some areas have been hit by famine in recent years. But he also criticised United Nations bodies, like the UNICEF relief agency for chiLdren, which he said allowed the government to dictate where they could go. He also criticised the international community for not putting more pressure on Khartoum to end the war. "Is it a religious right to declare jihad, or is that a violation of the human rights of the people the jihad is declared against?" he asked.