Sudan VP declares southern peace deal complete

By Khaled Abdel-Aziz

KHARTOUM, Jan 1 (Reuters) – Sudanese First Vice President Ali Osman Taha on Saturday declared as complete a peace accord to end 21 years of civil war in the south, but which does not deal with separate violence in the western region of Darfur.

Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and First Vice President First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha arrive together with their National Party secretary-general Ibraheem Ahmed Omer for the signing ceremony of peace protocols with rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Naivasha, 90 km (55 miles) west of Nairobi on December 31, 2004.. (Reuters) .

Thousands of Sudanese greeted Taha upon his return to Khartoum from the talks in Kenya, where delegations from the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) on Friday signed the final chapters of the peace deal.

The agreements pave the way to a comprehensive deal ending Africa’s longest running civil war. Taha and SPLM leader John Garang are due to sign a total of eight accords on Jan. 9.

“The peace agreement is finished completely and there are no differences remaining,” Taha told a crowd at the headquarters of the ruling National Congress. “What will take place next is merely a signing ceremony,” he said.

Supporters danced, sang and drummed to celebrate the peace accords. The war in the oil-producing south has killed an estimated 2 million people, mainly through famine and disease, and uprooted 4 million. Under the agreement, southerners will vote in a referendum on self-determination after a six-year period. Some of the crowd which gathered to welcome Taha home held aloft banners reading: “With unity, we will build Sudan.”

The sides have also agreed to form a coalition government, decentralise power, share oil revenues and integrate the military.

Rebels in the mainly Christian and animist south have been fighting the Islamist government in the north since 1983, when Khartoum tried to impose Islamic law on the entire country.

A separate rebellion broke out in Darfur in 2003.

Taha said the government was determined “to extinguish the fire of war” in Darfur, where rebels took up arms in protest at what they said was the government’s neglect of the region.

Taha called on the Darfur rebels to ready themselves for a new round of peace talks, which were suspended in December.

One of the main Darfur rebel groups has refused to return to the talks in Abuja and rejected the African Union’s sponsorship of peace efforts.

The United States, which has put diplomatic pressure on Sudan to end the war in the south, said on Friday it would help Khartoum implement the peace accords.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington, which lists Khartoum as a state sponsor of terror, was committed to normalising its relationship with a new government to be formed under the North-South accord and helping with reconstruction.

“But this can only take place with a Sudan that is at peace, with the peace process being implemented throughout the entire country,” Powell said.