Sudan foes sign deals key to ending two decades of civil war

NAIVASHA, Kenya, May 26 (AFP) — Sudan’s government and main rebel group signed several accords crucial to ending 21 years of devastating civil war in the south of the vast country, an AFP journalist witnessed.

The three protocols signed by Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army on power-sharing and the administration of three disputed regions cap two years of intense political negotiations in Kenya.

Following their signature, the technical and military aspects of a ceasefire are the only remaining obstacles to a comprehensive peace accord to end Africa’s longest-running conflict.

These negotiations do not however cover the crisis in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, where a more recent conflict has left hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation in what the United Nations has decried as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Nevertheless, the signing, which took place at a lakeside hotel near the western Kenyan town of Naivasha, prompted a cacaphony of cheers and ululations from hundreds of Sudanese refugees.

“This is a victory not only for the people of Sudan, who are so passionately thirsty for peace and stability for their country, but also for the entire continent,” Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said in a speech delivered on his behalf by Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka.

“These agreements represent a monumental step forwards and testify to the desire of all the people of Sudan to unite in their diversity,” he added.

The latest phase of Sudan’s long-running civil war reignited in 1983 when the south, where most observe traditional religions and Christianity, took up arms to end domination and marginalisation by the wealthier, Islamic and Arabised north.

Together with recurrent famine and disease, the war in Sudan has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced more than four million people, mostly in the impoverished south.