“Peace in our time” Fingers crossed, Sudan's terrible war is inching closer to an end

The Economist ^ | Oct 23, 2003 | The Economist

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COLIN POWELL, America's secretary of state, took a two-hour break this week to drop in on Sudan's peace talks. Apparently, that was long enough. On October 22nd, for the first time, the Sudanese government and southern rebels agreed to a deadline (the end of the year) for signing a power-sharing pact to end the world's longest-running civil war. The conflict, said John Garang, the rebel leader, will be over by Christmas. At Mr Powell's press conference in Naivasha, the Kenyan town where the talks are taking place, rebels and government officials grinned, applauded and even hugged.

Sudan has been at war, on and off, for half a century. The current conflict has lasted 20 years and claimed perhaps 2m lives. Previous vaunted “breakthroughs” have proven illusory. This time, however, there is cause for real hope—despite the lack of trust between the government, dominated by Arab Muslim radicals from the north of the country, and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), who are mostly black African animists and Christians from the south. Last month, the two sides agreed on a formula to address each other's security fears during a proposed six-year transition period before a referendum is held, offering southerners a chance to secede.

Under this agreement, the SPLA has neither to disarm nor disband. The government is to withdraw 80% of its troops from the south, and a new force is to be set up, under joint control. This should lay the foundation for a comprehensive peace deal. “Peace in Our Time,” bellowed the inaugural edition of the Sudan Mirror, the south's first newspaper, without irony.

Mr Powell's trip was designed to chivvy the negotiators over the last few hurdles. He insisted that they should keep talking through Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month. The head of the government's delegation, Vice-President Ali Osman Taha, reportedly stormed out in fury, but eventually returned.

Mr Powell is offering to lift American-imposed sanctions on the Sudanese government when the deal is signed, while threatening to aid the SPLA if the government drags its heels. If all goes well, the United States is also expected to remove Sudan from its list of states that sponsor terrorism, appoint an ambassador to Khartoum and dole out several million dollars to help rebuild the ruined country.

The SPLA and the government still have to work out exactly how to share power. The status of Khartoum, the capital, is one tricky issue. Southerners want it to be secular, not only so they can imbibe something stronger than hibiscus cordial, but also so that they no longer suffer discrimination in legal disputes with Muslims. The government insists that the city must remain under sharia (Islamic law).

Another problem is what to do with three northern regions—the Nuba Mountains, the Southern Blue Nile and Abyei—which the SPLA insists are spiritually southern, and which fought alongside it for much of the civil war. Both sides have signalled a desire to compromise on the first two of these areas, which will probably get limited autonomy. But Abyei is tougher, because oil was recently discovered there. The SPLA wants Khartoum to honour a pledge it made in 1972, offering Abyei a referendum on whether to join the north or the south. Khartoum says no.

Sudan's oil, which lies mostly in the south but is mostly controlled by the government, has for years inflamed the war. It paid for the government's arms and gave both sides an extra reason to fight. But now, at last, they seem close to agreement on how to share the oil revenues. This plainly makes sense.

The struggle between the SPLA and the government is not the only one in Sudan, however. Since February, aid agencies reckon that some 300,000 people have fled fighting between the government and a separate group of rebels in Darfur, in the west of the country. But the government makes it hard for anyone to report on this conflict, so details are scarce.

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One war ending in the south, another starts in the West... Powell not mincing his wors with Taha though, pleased to see.