Joyous Sudanese gather to witness peace deal
By Katie Nguyen and Wangui Kanina
NAIROBI, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Singing, dancing Sudanese exiles gathered to witness the signing on Sunday of a deal ending Africa’s longest-running civil war, saying they were determined to go home and rebuild their lives.
The Islamist government and southern rebels are due to sign the accord at a ceremony in a stadium in the Kenyan capital Nairobi later on Sunday, sealing an end to 21 years of war in the oil-exporting south of Africa’s largest country.
The agreement is expected to trigger the return of more than half a million Sudanese who fled into neighboring countries and the gradual resettlement of four million people displaced inside Sudan by the conflict.
“I feel great. 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.
“Of course it (returning to Sudan) will be difficult for the children. But we have explained to them that home is best.”
She was seated among a growing crowd of exiles and refugees entertained by bear-chested Sudanese and Kenyan dancers who leapt and whirled and beat drums to celebrate the coming peace.
“We are so happy today. We don’t want any more bloodshed in southern Sudan. I want to go home. I have 12 years to catch up on,” said musician Malek Malual, 25, from Sudan’s Abyei region.
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) leader John Garang and his main negotiating partner, Sudanese First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, are due to sign the comprehensive peace agreement in front of African heads of state and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The southern civil war began in 1983 and broadly pits the Islamist government based in Khartoum against the mainly Christian and animist south. The fighting has killed some two million people and forced millions more to flee their homes.
Oil, ethnicity and ideology have complicated the conflict.
Diplomats say a north-south deal may be a model for a separate conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region, where the crisis has uprooted more than 1.6 million Darfuris and 70,000 people have died in fighting and war-related disease.
Awadia al-Khatieeb, a government official in Khartoum who was visiting Nairobi for the ceremony, said: “Today is a very big day for us. We (in the north) have also suffered.
“This salvation government of (President Omar Hassan) al-Bashir is the first government to be serious about peace in the country. If this one (war) has been solved then Darfur will also end.
Garang and Taha will sign eight peace protocols that together make up an overall accord ending the war.
Under the agreements they will form a coalition government, decentralise power, share oil revenues and integrate the military. In six years the south can vote for secession.
The United States and others have put strong diplomatic pressure on Sudan to wrap up the southern peace, so that Khartoum can focus on ending the Darfur crisis.
The United States has a special interest in Sudan, which it lists as 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.