Sudanese gov’t, southern rebels to sign final peace deal Sunday

NAIROBI, Jan 3, 2005 (Xinhua) — Sudanese First Vice-President Ali Osman Taha and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) leader John Garang will sign a comprehensive peace agreement on January 9, a chief mediator confirmed here Monday.

northern Sudanese waves the flag of the SPLM/A in Khartoum after the signing of the first three protocols, on Wednesday May 26, 2004. (AP).

“A comprehensive peace agreement will be signed in Nairobi on Sunday at a venue to be communicated later. The agreement will be signed by Taha and Garang to end a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan,” Lazarus Sumbeiywo, Kenyan special envoy to the Sudan peace talks, told Xinhua by telephone.

The ceremony is expected to be held in the presence of foreign leaders, Sumbeiywo said, adding “we are going to send special invitation to the US government and other governments to attend the ceremony.”

The Sudanese government and the SPLM/A on Friday signed the agreement on permanent ceasefire and the implementation modalities of the final peace deal, the final two protocols of the comprehensive peace deal.

The Sudanese civil war started in 1983 when the SPLM/A took up arms fighting for self-determination in the southern part of the country, which has left some two million people dead, mostly through war-induced famine and disease.

The Sudanese government and the SPLM/A began peace talks in March 1994 in Kenya, under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, a seven-member regional group in east Africa, grouping Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.