Sudan signs peace deal with Darfur faction

By Estelle Shirbon

ABUJA (Reuters) – The government of Sudan and the main
Darfur rebel faction signed a peace agreement on Friday to end
three years of fighting that has killed tens of thousands of
people and forced 2 million to flee their homes.

Majzoub al-Khalifa, head of the government’s negotiating
team, and rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction leader
Minni Arcua Minnawi signed the agreement in the Nigerian
capital Abuja after days of intense negotiations and
international pressure.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo praised the SLA chief
for being not only a military commander but a political leader.

“Leadership comes to the fore when hard decisions are to be
made,” he said to applause from diplomats gathered at
Obasanjo’s presidential compound.

“Unless the right spirit is there, the right attitude, this
document will not be worth the paper it’s written on. The
spirit that led to the signing should continue to guide the
implementation,” Obasanjo added.

Both the government and the SLA faction said they were
signing the document despite reservations over power sharing
and security in order to end the suffering in Darfur.

Aid organizations say the conflict has created one of the
worst humanitarian crises in the world.

But it was unclear whether the agreement, signed after two
years of African Union-mediated talks, will translate into
peace on the ground in Darfur.

A rival faction of the SLA and the smaller Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM) have rejected the deal.

Minnawi has more support among SLA fighters than rival
faction leader Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur, observers say, and
JEM is marginal in terms of forces on the ground.

“JEM frankly doesn’t matter but Abdel Wahed does. There are
provisions in the agreement for armed groups that are not
signatory to be made to observe the agreement,” said a Western
diplomat, who has been involved in crafting the blueprint.

Obasanjo said the international community would continue to
appeal to those who had refused to sign to come on board.

FIRST STEP

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who helped
secure the deal, said it was a first step on what could still
be a difficult path requiring cooperation from all sides.

“This agreement, implemented by all of you, creates an
opportunity for peace for your people, he said.

“There will be tests because not all have shown courage and
leadership today. Those parties are bound by the cease-fire as
all are,” he added.

Another negotiator, Hilary Benn, UK Secretary of State for
International Development, said: “This is the first step toward
ending the truly terrible suffering of the people of Darfur.”

Rebels took up arms in early 2003 in ethnically mixed
Darfur, a region the size of France, over what they saw as
neglect by the Arab-dominated central government.

Khartoum used militias, drawn from Arab tribes, to crush
the rebellion. A campaign of arson, looting and rape has caused
a humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and the United States
labels the violence there “genocide.”

The rebels and government agreed to a cease-fire in 2004
but it has been violated often and by all parties.

Western governments have called for the 7,000-strong AU
peacekeeping mission in Darfur to be turned over to the United
Nations but the government in Khartoum has said it would only
consider U.N. troops after a peace agreement.

U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said access for aid
workers in Darfur is at its worst level in two years.

“I first spoke to the U.N. Security Council on Darfur two
years ago, calling it ethnic cleansing of the worst kind.
Today, I could simply hit the rewind button on much of that
earlier briefing,” he wrote in an editorial on Friday.

British-based aid group Oxfam called on all sides to ensure
any peace agreement coming out of Abuja is enforced.