U.S. Envoy Hopeful That Deal Can Be Made to End Sudan War

President Bush’s special envoy to Sudan expressed optimism Monday that an agreement could be reached to end a nearly 20-year-old civil war in the African country that has killed an estimated 2 million people and caused millions more to flee their homes.

After he met with leaders of the Sudanese government and the main rebel group who are negotiating here, former Sen. John C. Danforth predicted that a written peace deal would be reached by year’s end.

But he warned that any such agreement would be merely a first step, adding that both parties and the international community would have to work hard to implement it.

“I’ve always believed that paper litters the landscape with respect to peace agreements and that a piece of paper is only a piece of paper,” Danforth said. “Peace is not paper. Peace is work.”

Since Bush appointed him five days before the Sept. 11 attacks, the former Missouri senator has been skeptical that a meaningful peace deal could be forged to end one of Africa’s longest-running and most brutal conflicts. Even early last month, Danforth said he did not foresee a peace deal.

“Am I optimistic? No,” he said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I think optimism requires some tangible basis, that you’re confident that this will work. I don’t know if it will or not.”

But later last month, in talks sponsored by the Kenyan government, both sides surprised analysts by announcing that they had settled their differences on two of the most contentious issues. The government agreed that its Islamic Sharia law would not be enforced in southern Sudan, and both sides agreed that six years after a final peace deal, people in southern Sudan would vote whether to remain in Sudan or secede.

The conflict pits the Muslim-dominated government in the north against rebels seeking more autonomy in the south for Christians and those practicing traditional African religions. In the United States, a coalition of African American leaders and conservative Christians has been pressuring the Bush administration to take action against the government, which they say oppresses Christians and encourages slave raids on southern Sudanese civilians.

At the second round of talks, now taking place in Machakos, about 30 miles southeast of Nairobi, the capital, the government and rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army are discussing how to divide power in the national government and how to share money flowing from oil fields in the south.

While talks continued Monday, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir reshuffled his Cabinet to include seven members of a breakaway faction of a leading opposition party.

Analysts have said that since seizing power in 1989, Bashir and leaders of his radical Islamist government have been eager to broaden their base.

Agreeing to an interim deal is a key way to win support from a large segment of the population, the analysts say.

“They want to be seen as the party that delivers the peace and delivers the oil,” said John Prendergast, a Sudan specialist with the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

Prendergast, who was a member of the U.S. National Security Council during the Clinton administration, reported that despite the peace talks, the Sudanese government has intensified efforts to clear civilians from an area around prospective oil fields.

Prendergast visited Sudan earlier this month and interviewed many people among tens of thousands of civilians who were forced to flee the government’s new offensive in western Upper Nile province.

Still, Prendergast said that the current peace talks represent the “best chance” for peace since Bashir’s coup.

But he said that the United States needs to do more to nudge the parties toward a final deal. Bush, he said, should personally involve himself in the process, making telephone calls to participants in the talks--as he does in the Middle East peace process.

On Monday, Danforth described Bush as “fully engaged” in Sudan, saying the president has met with him repeatedly to discuss the issue. Danforth said the president wants to use any successful peace deal in Sudan as a model to solve other conflicts. Bush believes that “if Sudan can work out a peace deal, it could be possible for anywhere in the world,” Danforth said.