Khartoum, main southern rebels to sign accord to end years of fighting

NAIROBI, jan 6 (AFP) — The Sudanese government and the main rebel group will on Sunday sign a final peace agreement to end Africa’s longest conflict in southern Sudan, in a ceremony to be attended by several presidents and heads of government in the Kenyan capital.

SPLM leader John Garang (left) shakes hands with Sudanese president Omar El Bashir (right), in the presence of Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki (centre) Wednesday April 2, 2003 (file/AFP).

The deal will be signed by Sudan’s President Omar el-Beshir and southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) rebel leader John Garang to end the devastating war that has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced four million people since 1983.

The two sides started negotiating in Kenya early 2002, to halt the conflit that has been complicated by the presence of vast reservoirs of oil.

“The most important date of the Sudan peace process will be Sunday,” Kenyan Regional Cooperation Minister John Koech, who is tasked with organising the ceremony, said this week.

The two sides lived up to their pledge, which they made to the UN Security Council in November, to agree by year-end.

The deal does not cover another 22-month conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region, where 70,000 people have died with 1.6 million others displaced.

The cornerstone of the final agreement-a package of eight protocolsagreed since 2002 by the two parties-is a protocol, which was signed in July 2002, exempting the south from Sharia law and granting it six years of self rule after which it will vote in a referendum whether to remain part of Sudan or secede.

Since then, Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Garang have agreed deals on transitional security, special arrangements that will be in force in three disputed areas, sharing of power and receipts accrued from oil revenue on a 50-50 basis.

“If there is goodwill, this agreement can be implemented,” chief mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo, a retired Kenyan, told AFP.

A western scholar, who acted as the talks’ chief advisor, told AFP: “The agreement will hold, but both sides will fool around in the early days, just like in any post-conflict deal implementation.”

After the deal is signed, there will be a six month pre-interim period at which both sides will be carrying out preparations before the proper transitional six-year period starts, when the south commences running its own affairs.

SPLM/A will be operating from the southern town of Rumbek, home to United Nations and other humanitarian agencies operating in the south, awaiting the government’s withdrawal from the larger Juba town, also in the south.

Garang should be sworn in as the first vice president, a post currently occupied by Taha, after the Sudanese parliament passes the interim constitution-modelled along the peace peal.

Accordingly, there will be regional and international observers and guarantee mechanisms, including foreign troops, to ensure that a final peace deal is implemented in the long run.

On November 21, United Nations special envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk said the global body will “deploy thousands, probably 7,000 troops from different countries in south Sudan a month after the final peace deal is signed.”

Also expected after the deal is the expansion of oil projects in Africa’s largest nation. Currently, it produces about 350,000 barrels a day, mostly from wells in southern Sudan.

The Khartoum government will avail the first 50 percent of Sudan’s oil revenue on Sunday in order to help the rebels start planning for pre-interim period, SPLM/A spokesman Samson Kwaje told AFP, citing agreed documents.

United Nations Mine Action is also expected to expand clearance of landmines before hundreds of thousands of displaced people and refugees start streaming back to their villages.

The Sudan war erupted in 1983 when the rebels rose up against Khartoum to end Arab and Muslim domination and marginalisation of the black, animist and Christian south.