Truce to take effect at midnight in DarfurKhartoum, Darfur rebels sign peace accord

Truce to take effect at midnight in DarfurKhartoum, Darfur rebels sign peace accord
DOHA (Agencies)

Sudan and Darfur's main rebel group signed a ceasefire agreement on Tuesday, although any final peace deal will still need to be backed by other armed factions.

Justice and Equality Movement leader Khalil Ibrahim said he and Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir signed the accord, which is due to take effect at midnight in Darfur.

Also present were the host, Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, as well as Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno and Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki.


Last-minute hitches had delayed the signing, a JEM spokesman told AFP, without saying what the problem was.

The 12-point provisional deal offered the JEM, long-seen as Darfur's most heavily armed rebel group, a power-sharing role in Sudan, where the first presidential and legislative polls in 24 years are to be held in April.

According to a French language copy of the framework agreement, JEM and Khartoum agreed to "the participation of the Justice and Equality Movement at all levels of government (executive, legislative, ...) in a manner to be agreed subsequently between the two parties."

The two sides agreed that the JEM would become "a political party as soon as the final agreement is signed between the two parties" by March 15, the fourth article of the document says.
"Start of the end"

Bashir said the ceasefire deal marked the "start of the end" of the Darfur conflict.

The accord was "the first step towards ending the crisis in Darfur," Bashir said, hoping for a "comprehensive peace" in the troubled region of western Sudan ahead of his country's presidential and legislative polls in April.

This year will "mark a new Sudan, stable and peaceful, a united Sudan, by the will of its people," he said.

On Saturday, representatives of the Khartoum government and the JEM inked a framework agreement in Chad proclaiming a "ceasefire" in the seven-year-old Darfur conflict.

Khartoum has long accused Chad of aiding the rebels, while Ndjamena accused Sudan of backing its own rebel groups, but the two presidents were reconciled in Khartoum this month, setting the stage for the Darfur accord.

The first signing of the agreement in Chad at the weekend has been seen as a key step towards ending seven years of war and devastation in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

The conflict has claimed about 300,000 lives and displaced 2.7 million people, according to U.N. figures, since it broke out in February 2003. Sudan puts the death toll at 10,2D0.

But it has also seen a splintering of rebel groups, fighting against the marginalization of their region, into small factions, making efforts to seal a lasting peace in the troubled region a massive task.

A ceasefire with the JEM would close the most active front in Darfur, but smaller rebel groups such as the faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army of France-based exile Abdelwahid Nur have refused to enter talks with Khartoum.

One of the smaller factions, the JEM-Democracy, also has turned its back on the accord, saying it was biased.