Sudan, Rebels Agree to a Deal

The Sudanese government and southern rebels have agreed on how to resolve the major issues in one of Africa’s longest civil wars and reached a framework Saturday for talks next month to draft a final peace deal, delegates said.

Ghazi Salah al Din Atabani, the government’s peace advisor, and Samson Kwaje, spokesman for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, said they have reached agreement on the separation of state and religion as well as self-determination for the southern Sudanese.

Both men said the remaining issues will be relatively easy to resolve when the parties meet again in August.

The rebel delegation was led by the group’s second in command, Salva Kiir, who signed the agreement, which was reached in negotiations held for the last month in the Kenyan town of Machakos, about 30 miles southeast of Nairobi, the capital.

Analysts say there is a deep distrust between the two sides, and many deals signed in the past were violated. The agreements reached Saturday remain fairly vague, and details must be settled before they can be implemented.

But renewed international interest in recent months--most significantly from the United States--has restoked the desire to end the war, and observers welcomed the fact that the sides appeared to have found some common ground.

“This is a major break with the past,” regional political analyst Moustafa Hassouna said. “I think there has been a creation of a middle ground ... that has yielded concessions that have never been verbalized before.”

“We have agreed that unity must be the priority,” Atabani said. He added that the government will allow an internationally monitored referendum in the south after a six-year interim period to allow the people to decide whether they want to be part of Sudan. That period will begin once a final peace deal is signed, he said.

Kwaje said that “the most critical issues have been solved,” including the government’s attempts to impose Islamic law, known as Sharia, on southerners, who mostly follow traditional religions and Christianity. The Sudanese Constitution would be rewritten to ensure that Sharia law can be used in the north but will not infringe on the rights of non-Muslims in the south.

Sudan’s civil war broke out in 1983. An estimated 2 million people have died, mainly through war-induced famine, and about 4 million have been forced to flee their homes.