Sudan's vice president and the country's main rebel leader signed a comprehensive peace agreement to end Africa's longest-running conflict yesterday, concluding an eight-year process to stop a civil war that has cost more than 2 million lives since 1983.
In a lavish ceremony in neigh-boring Kenya -- where the talks were based -- Sudanese Vice Pres-ident Ali Osman Mohammed Taha and John Garang, chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, signed the peace agreement.
The north-south war has pit-ted Sudan's Islamic-dominated government against rebels seeking greater autonomy and a greater share of the country's wealth for the largely animist south. The conflict is blamed for more than 2 million deaths, primarily from war-induced famine and disease.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed as witnesses. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Italy's Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini and Norwegian International Development Minister Hilde Johnson then signed as witnesses, representing donors who've backed the peace negotiations.
Kenya has hosted the talks since they began in earnest in 1997 and Museveni is the current chairman of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional grouping that has mediated the talks.
The deal "will close a dark chapter in the history of Sudan ... This is a promising day for the people of Sudan, but only if to-day's promises are kept,'' Powell said.
Nine other African leaders attended the ceremony, including Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir and African Union Chairman and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Arab League Secretary General Amre Moussa was also present.
During the last two years of talks, the adversaries have signed protocols on how to share power and natural wealth, what to do with their armed forces during a six-year transition period and how to administer three disputed areas in central Sudan.
They also agreed that after the six-year transition, southerners would vote in a referendum on whether to remain united with the north, or to become independent.
UN officials have said the Security Council will review the peace agreement within two weeks, after which the council will adopt a resolution establishing a peace support mission for Sudan.
The mission's key tasks will be to monitor the ceasefire and protect its observers, as well as help the government and rebels reduce their forces and move them to designated areas as agreed to in the protocols.
For the Sudanese government and the rebels, the next step after signing the peace deal will be for the parliament in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and the rebel parliament to ratify the agreement within two weeks.
After that, negotiators will work on an interim national constitution.
Joseph Lange, 58, from the village of Aweng in southern Sudan said that he feels while the agreement is not perfect, it's definitely worth trying.
"In terms of wealth sharing, we share the wealth of the south, but the north doesn't share. But we've been at war for a long time so it's worth trying something new," Lange said at Nairobi's Nyayo National Stadium ahead of the opening ceremony.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS