Sudan Govt Signs Peace Pact With Rebels To End 17 Years Of Insurgency

BY DIL OKENYI

JUBA, South Sudan|SHIFTMEDIA| The Sudanese Government has signed a historic peace agreement with several rebel groups geared towards putting to an end the 17-year war in Sudan.

The war that has ravaged mainly in Darfur has reported hundreds of thousands killed and millions rendered homeless.

The peace deal was signed on Monday, in the first ceremony held in Juba, Southern Sudan, with the first rebel movements in Darfur.

The rebels and the government initialed eight protocols that make up the peace agreement: security, land ownership, transitional justice, reparations and compensation, nomadic and pastoral development, wealth sharing, power-sharing, and the return of refugees and displaced persons.

For the authorities, it was in khaki military uniform that Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, vice-president of the Sovereignty Council signed the agreement.

Yesterday’s enemies, Mr. Daglo and the leaders of the rebel movements, grouped within the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF), shook hands and even initiated a few dance steps.

The agreement was also done in the presence of the President of South Sudan Salva Kiir. who served as a witness.

Other agreements for the development of the country were signed by political and tribal leaders from several regions.

Mr. Kiir took his seat at the podium, under a banner reading “Mediation Committee for Peace Talks”, alongside General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, who chairs the Sovereign Council at the head of Sudan, and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok.

To celebrate their first success since the fall of autocrat Omar al-Bashir in the spring of 2019, Sudanese leaders traveled in large numbers to Juba.

“We know that we will face some problems when we start to proceed (to the implementation of this agreement) on the ground but we have this political will and our friends in the army have this political will to make it work,” said Fayçal Mohamed Saleh, Minister of Information and Culture.

“It is a great success. We believe that we have thus begun the real transformation of Sudan from a dictatorship to a democracy because we are now joined by armed movements of people from all regions of Sudan,” he added.

The head of the mediators and advisor to the President of South Sudan on security matters, Tutkew Gatluak, said

“The dream has come true after considerable efforts to reach a peace agreement between the government and the Sudanese Revolutionary Front”.

The SRF is made up of four guerrilla movements that fought in Darfur in the west and in the states of South Kordofan and the Blue Nile in the south.

It took a year to reach this agreement, that was characterised as so deep and full of mistrust.

“When the Juba Declaration was issued in September (2019), everyone expected the peace to be signed within two or three months, but we realized that the issues were of rare complexity,” said Hamdok.

After the failure of several peace agreements, such as 2006 one in Abuja, Nigeria, and the 2010 one in Qatar, yesterday’s opponents understood that it was not just a security issue. They got to the bottom of the problems that have plagued the country since its independence in 1956.

The agreement stipulates that the armed movements will eventually have to be dismantled and that their combatants will have to join the regular army, which will be reorganized to be representative of all components of the Sudanese people.

These peace negotiations were the priority of the new government in Khartoum.