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Sudan, Southern Rebels End 21-Year War
Sun Jan 9, 2005 08:17 AM ET
NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) - As bare-chested warriors danced and turbaned heads bowed in prayer, Sudan's Islamist government and southern rebels forged a comprehensive peace Sunday ending Africa's longest-running civil war.
Sudan's First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and rebel leader John Garang signed the accord in Kenya's capital Nairobi, ending a 21-year conflict in the south that has killed an estimated two million people mainly by famine and disease.
The agreement did not cover a separate conflict in the western Darfur area of Africa's largest country, where almost two years of fighting have created what the United Nations calls one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. At the signing ceremony in a Nairobi sports stadium, bare-chested Dinka warriors wearing leopard-skin loincloths and white paint on their faces danced for thousands of banner-waving exiles and refugees who planned now to return home.
"If I had wings I would be flying," said Grace Datiro, 35, a southerner who has lived in Kenya for 14 years since war drove her from her home in Sudan's Equatoria region.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, attending the signing, urged Khartoum and the southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to work together immediately to end atrocities in Darfur, and said Washington would upgrade its ties with Sudan to a "positive relationship" only when that was done.
"This positive relationship will only be possible in the context of peace throughout the entire country," he said, urging both parties to keep promises made in the southern peace accord.
Washington has a special interest in Sudan, which it lists as a state sponsor of terrorism because of Khartoum's record of hosting militant Islamists including Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s, and maintains a range of economic curbs against it.
The U.N. Security Council -- meeting in Nairobi, away from its New York home for the first time in 14 years -- unanimously adopted a resolution in November promising political and substantial economic support once Sudan ended both wars.
The new agreement is expected to trigger the return of more than half a million Sudanese who fled to nearby countries and the gradual resettlement of four million displaced internally.
HOPE FOR PEACE
"Peace is going to bring our country abundance, welfare and benefaction," said Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
In Khartoum, Korsheek Ayoum, a 35-year-old labourer from the south, said: "We hope after peace there will be more work and equality for all citizens, whether from the north or the south."
In front of 12 African heads of state or government and Powell, SPLM chairman Garang and Taha put their names to protocols signed by colleagues in two years of talks. The deals together form an overall accord including a permanent cease-fire.
Under the agreement the ruling National Congress party and the SPLM will form an interim coalition government, decentralize power, share oil revenues and integrate the military. At the end of a six-year interim period, the south can vote for secession. "I congratulate the marginalized people of rural Sudan who have suffered in silent dignity for so long," said Garang.
Diplomats predicted increased pressure on Khartoum toward a comprehensive resolution of all the country's conflicts, which have expanded over the years to include unrest in the east.
Analysts say the conflicts share common roots in the chronic domination of post-independence politics in Sudan by a small Arab elite with its home base in the Nile valley north of Khartoum, to the detriment of fringe provinces.
In the south rebels have been fighting the government since 1983, when Khartoum tried to impose Islamic law on the entire country. Oil, ethnicity and ideology complicated the conflict.
Violence also has erupted in Darfur, where a revolt began in February 2003 after years of tribal conflict over scarce resources. Those rebels accuse the government of neglect and of using Arab militias to loot and burn non-Arab villages.
Khartoum acknowledges arming some militias to fight rebels but denies links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws. Tens of thousands have already been killed in the Darfur war.
In the Libyan capital Tripoli, Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur, chairman of the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, told Reuters he welcomed the agreement but said there should be a comprehensive peace for all of Sudan and not the south.
"The SLM welcomes the agreement between the Khartoum government and the SPLM in Kenya, but there will not be permanent peace in Sudan unless the government solves the Darfur problem immediately and swiftly," he said.
Since independence from Britain in 1956, there have been tensions between Sudan's north and south. Past governments were quick to renege on a similar deal to end a 17-year war between north and south in 1972. That conflict cost one million lives. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed)
? Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
Well, the crisis in Darfur is still not over yet, but it's nice to hear some good news for a change..
Sun Jan 9, 2005 08:17 AM ET
NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) - As bare-chested warriors danced and turbaned heads bowed in prayer, Sudan's Islamist government and southern rebels forged a comprehensive peace Sunday ending Africa's longest-running civil war.
Sudan's First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and rebel leader John Garang signed the accord in Kenya's capital Nairobi, ending a 21-year conflict in the south that has killed an estimated two million people mainly by famine and disease.
The agreement did not cover a separate conflict in the western Darfur area of Africa's largest country, where almost two years of fighting have created what the United Nations calls one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. At the signing ceremony in a Nairobi sports stadium, bare-chested Dinka warriors wearing leopard-skin loincloths and white paint on their faces danced for thousands of banner-waving exiles and refugees who planned now to return home.
"If I had wings I would be flying," said Grace Datiro, 35, a southerner who has lived in Kenya for 14 years since war drove her from her home in Sudan's Equatoria region.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, attending the signing, urged Khartoum and the southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to work together immediately to end atrocities in Darfur, and said Washington would upgrade its ties with Sudan to a "positive relationship" only when that was done.
"This positive relationship will only be possible in the context of peace throughout the entire country," he said, urging both parties to keep promises made in the southern peace accord.
Washington has a special interest in Sudan, which it lists as a state sponsor of terrorism because of Khartoum's record of hosting militant Islamists including Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s, and maintains a range of economic curbs against it.
The U.N. Security Council -- meeting in Nairobi, away from its New York home for the first time in 14 years -- unanimously adopted a resolution in November promising political and substantial economic support once Sudan ended both wars.
The new agreement is expected to trigger the return of more than half a million Sudanese who fled to nearby countries and the gradual resettlement of four million displaced internally.
HOPE FOR PEACE
"Peace is going to bring our country abundance, welfare and benefaction," said Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
In Khartoum, Korsheek Ayoum, a 35-year-old labourer from the south, said: "We hope after peace there will be more work and equality for all citizens, whether from the north or the south."
In front of 12 African heads of state or government and Powell, SPLM chairman Garang and Taha put their names to protocols signed by colleagues in two years of talks. The deals together form an overall accord including a permanent cease-fire.
Under the agreement the ruling National Congress party and the SPLM will form an interim coalition government, decentralize power, share oil revenues and integrate the military. At the end of a six-year interim period, the south can vote for secession. "I congratulate the marginalized people of rural Sudan who have suffered in silent dignity for so long," said Garang.
Diplomats predicted increased pressure on Khartoum toward a comprehensive resolution of all the country's conflicts, which have expanded over the years to include unrest in the east.
Analysts say the conflicts share common roots in the chronic domination of post-independence politics in Sudan by a small Arab elite with its home base in the Nile valley north of Khartoum, to the detriment of fringe provinces.
In the south rebels have been fighting the government since 1983, when Khartoum tried to impose Islamic law on the entire country. Oil, ethnicity and ideology complicated the conflict.
Violence also has erupted in Darfur, where a revolt began in February 2003 after years of tribal conflict over scarce resources. Those rebels accuse the government of neglect and of using Arab militias to loot and burn non-Arab villages.
Khartoum acknowledges arming some militias to fight rebels but denies links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws. Tens of thousands have already been killed in the Darfur war.
In the Libyan capital Tripoli, Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur, chairman of the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, told Reuters he welcomed the agreement but said there should be a comprehensive peace for all of Sudan and not the south.
"The SLM welcomes the agreement between the Khartoum government and the SPLM in Kenya, but there will not be permanent peace in Sudan unless the government solves the Darfur problem immediately and swiftly," he said.
Since independence from Britain in 1956, there have been tensions between Sudan's north and south. Past governments were quick to renege on a similar deal to end a 17-year war between north and south in 1972. That conflict cost one million lives. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed)
? Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
Well, the crisis in Darfur is still not over yet, but it's nice to hear some good news for a change..
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