Sudan Officials, Rebels Pledge to Sign Peace Accord by Year’s End

The leaders of Sudan’s warring forces pledged Thursday to sign a peace agreement by Dec. 31, a move aimed at ending the nation’s 21-year-long civil war and providing hope for new stability in the crisis-torn region of Darfur.

Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha and rebel leader John Garang said they would today sign the commitment, which promises to wrap up peace talks by year’s end. The memorandum of understanding will be witnessed by the entire U.N. Security Council, whose members have come to Nairobi in a rare move to focus attention on Sudan’s two civil wars and burgeoning humanitarian crisis.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the two sides to forge peace quickly, and for the Security Council to back them up with political and financial support, or penalties if they failed to keep their promises. Although he focused on the peace agreement, he also decried continued violence against civilians in Darfur by soldiers -- and even police -- despite the government’s pledges to stop it.

Rebels seeking a greater share of power and wealth for the largely Christian and animist south have battled the Islamic national government for more than two decades.

More than 2 million people have died during the conflict, mostly of war-induced hunger and disease. The peace pact would allow the rebels to join the government and split the country’s oil revenue. It also would pave the way for the south to vote on self-rule after 6 1/2 years.

Sudan’s western region of Darfur erupted in conflict in February 2003, when the government joined with largely Sudanese Arab militias to put down a non-Arab rebel movement. The government-backed fighters are accused of systematic attacks that have driven about 2 million people from their land, and left an estimated 70,000 dead.

About 1.6 million refugees live in temporary tent cities, with the government eager for them to disperse, but with no place for them to go. The U.N. calls it the world’s “worst humanitarian crisis,” and U.N. investigators arrived in Sudan this week to determine whether the systematic killings amounted to genocide.

“The terrible situation in Darfur has been brought about mainly by deliberate acts of violence against civilians, including widespread killing and rape,” Annan said. “Because of the magnitude and intensity of the human suffering in that region, the conflict remains a burning concern.”

Although the preliminary pact provides fresh hope for ending Africa’s longest civil war, the two sides have not followed through on previous pledges. A year ago, they had planned to sign an agreement by last Christmas, but talks fell apart.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John C. Danforth, who helped launch the peace process in 2001 as the Bush administration’s special envoy to Sudan, said Thursday that he was “very encouraged,” but also realistic.

“I’ve been at this issue for more than three years,” he said at the lush U.N. compound where the Security Council representatives were staying. “Until there is peace and until both sides are really working at the process of building a country together, until then, it’s really all on paper.”

Danforth added, however, that he believed neither side wanted Sudan to become a failed state and that both were finally ready for peace.

Garang, leader of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, said that only four small issues related to the sharing of power, oil revenue and the funding of his forces remained, and could be “resolved in a matter of days.”

Taha, the Sudanese vice president, told the Security Council that his country was committed to peace. But he denied that the government bore responsibility for the Darfur crisis.

He said “the war in Darfur ... has been instigated by local parties who receive support from foreign parties.” He asked the international community to provide $1.8 billion to help rebuild the region.

Human rights and relief groups have urged the Security Council to make good on two previous resolutions sponsored by the U.S. threatening to impose sanctions if the government doesn’t disarm and prosecute militias and protect civilians, as Khartoum has pledged to do.

“They have the gall to ask the international community to come up with $1.8 billion to help repair Darfur when they did all the damage themselves,” said Jemera Rone of Human Rights Watch. “That takes a lot of nerve.”

The envoys who represent the Security Council’s 15 member nations have been debating just how hard to push Sudan on the Darfur crisis without prompting Khartoum to pull out of the talks.

Taha had threatened not to show up in Nairobi if Darfur was even on the agenda.

China, Russia, Algeria and Pakistan initially opposed the trip and have strongly objected to highlighting Darfur. The U.S. has called the situation in Darfur genocide, and Danforth had to push hard to bring the council to Nairobi to help spur the peace talks. Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya blocked an explicit threat of sanctions on Sudan in the council’s last two resolutions and managed to keep it out of a new one as well.

“Even for the protection of human rights, you need the cooperation of the government to change its behavior,” he said. The Security Council’s visit marks only the fourth time that it has met outside New York in more than 50 years and the first time it has done so since 1990.

“The belief of the members of the Security Council when deciding to come to Nairobi was that ... we were putting the reputation of the Security Council at stake,” Danforth said after Thursday’s talks. “And that’s a risky situation to be in. But Sudan is so important ... that we were willing to take that risk.”

Now that the council is in Kenya, pressure is mounting on its members as much as on Sudan’s leaders to help end the war.

Annan reminded the envoys that if the two sides could not resolve the issue, the problem would fall on the Security Council’s shoulders.

“When crimes on such a scale are being committed, and a sovereign state appears unable or unwilling to protect its own citizens, a grave responsibility falls on the international community, and specifically on this council,” he said.

In a new resolution it expects to adopt today, the Security Council is holding out promises of a massive financial package to help rebuild a peaceful Sudan. Danforth said that Sudan was aware the council would consider sanctions if Khartoum failed to live up to its pledges, but that the Nairobi meeting was about looking forward.

“What we want to do is point out that the international community is going to be there for Sudan in the long run,” Danforth said. “And that we’re not going to just watch the signing of an agreement and then cross that off the ‘to-do’ list.”