Powell signs as witness to the landmark agreement

NAIROBI, January 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Sudan's Vice President Ali Othman Taha and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) leader John Garang signed here Sunday, January 9, a permanent peace accord ending Africa's longest-running civil war.

Thousands of singing and dancing Sudanese, many of them refugees living in Kenya, filled Kenya's Nyayo National Stadium, which hosted the ceremony, hoping the accord will bring “a new dawn” to the war-ravaged country, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A host of African, Arab and foreign officials put their names as witnesses to the historic agreement, closing a 21-year chapter of civil strife in the Arab-African country.

They included Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the current chairman of the regional development organization that sponsored the talks, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa and US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, who put Taha in charge of the peace talks, Algerian President Abdulaziz Bouteflika and Rwandan President Paul Kagame also attended the ceremony.

Arab leaders, save Bouteflika, were conspicuous by their absence with some of them dispatching their top diplomats as representatives.

Khartoum and the SPLM have come under strong pressure from the United States to end the southern war by the end of 2004.

Washington has been showing a special interest in Sudan, which has potential large oil reserves. Chinese companies currently dominate the oil sector in the country.

Africa’s Longest Conflict

“If I am invited I will come. If I am not invited I will ask to be invited,” Garang said about Darfur peace talks. (Reuters)

The agreement, which puts an immediate ceasefire in place, is the culmination of lengthy negotiations that kicked off in Kenya in early 2002, after numerous false starts since Khartoum and the rebels adopted an agenda for such talks in 1994.

Both sides signed on December 31 the last two protocols in the Kenyan northwestern town of Naivasha, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Nairobi, removing the remaining obstacle to the comprehensive peace agreement.

The cornerstone of the accord -- a package of eight protocols agreed since 2002 -- is a protocol exempting the south from Shari`ah law and granting it six years of self rule after which southerners will vote in a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede, according to AFP.

The two worrying sides have agreed deals on transitional security, special arrangements that will be in force in three disputed areas as well as sharing power and oil revenue on a 50-50 basis.

Sunday's signing will usher in a six-month pre-interim period during which both sides will carry out preparations before the official six-year transitional period starts, when the south commences running its own affairs.

SPLM will be operating from the southern town of Rumbek, home to UN and other humanitarian agencies operating in the region, while awaiting the government's withdrawal from the larger town of Juba, 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 -- modeled along the peace peal.

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

The war in south Sudan erupted in 1983 when the rebels, led by Garang, rose up against the government protest at the marginalization of the south.

It has reportedly claimed at least 1.5 million lives and left more than four million others homeless.

Impetus for Darfur

Analysts said the peace accord could give a fresh impetus to peace talks between Khartoum and the rebel groups in the western region of Darfur.

Garang said he planned to push for peace in Darfur once he joins a national unity government under the peace accord, Reuters news agency reported.

“You cannot have peace in one part of the country and war in another part of the country,” Garang told a news conference on the eve of the signing ceremony.

Asked if he would participate in talks to end the Darfur conflict, which the UN describes as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, Garang replied: “If I am invited I will come. If I am not invited I will ask to be invited.”

Darfur rebels took up arms in early 2003 after years of tribal skirmishes over scarce resources in the remote region.

They accuse Khartoum of negligence and of allegedly using the Arab Janjaweed militias to loot and burn non-Arab villages, a charge refuted by the government.

Several rounds of talks between the two sides in the Nigerian capital Abuja have so far yielded little progress, and both sides continue to trade accusations on violating a ceasefire thrashed out last April.