WASHINGTON (ABP) — In what many hope will be the beginning of the end of a bloody conflict fueled by ethnic and religious differences, Sudan's Arab-dominated government signed a peace agreement Jan. 9.
Meeting in neighboring Kenya, Vice President Ali Taha of Sudan's Muslim government signed the accord, along with John Garang, commander of rebels from the country's south. Southern Sudan is mainly populated by black Africans who practice Christianity or native animist religions. The north is populated most by Arab Muslims.
The agreement marks the official end of hostilities in one of Africa's longest-running civil wars. It initiates a six-year transition period to a reunified north-south government. If it works, it could spark redevelopment in the oil-rich nation, much of whose population has been rendered destitute as a result of the conflict.
However, the accord does nothing to end a separate conflict between black African rebels and government-supported Arab militias in the nation's arid western region, Darfur. That war has led to what international humanitarian agencies and several governments, including the United States, have labeled as “genocide” perpetrated on black African Darfurians. The crisis has led to the destruction of scores of villages, hundreds of farms, and the displacement of thousands of black Darfurians into refugee camps.
The agreement between Sudan's north and south calls for more equitable sharing of oil revenues between both regions, which has been a major source of the conflict. It also calls for Sharia, or Islamic law, only to apply in the north. Its application to non-Muslims in the south was another impetus for the war.
Despite the hope surrounding the agreement — its signing was reportedly greeted with ecstatic celebration by Sudanese refugees living in Nairobi, Kenya, — the road to a permanent peace in Sudan is still fraught with peril.
“It's a big day, but I'm not euphoric,” said John Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a former American envoy to Sudan, according to the New York Times. “It's like climbing Mount Everest. You reach one pinnacle and there are ranges of mountains behind.”
According to the Washington Post, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who witnessed the agreement and signed it as a witness, said both sides in the north-south conflict “must work together immediately to end the violence and atrocities that continue to occur in Darfur — not next month, or in the interim period, but right away, starting today.”
The plight of the southern Sudanese has been something of a cause celebre for evangelical Christians in the United States over the past several years. President Bush's administration focused heavily on reaching a peace accord between the factions. The non-partisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has repeatedly cited the Sudanese government as one of the world's worst violators of religious liberty.