Friday

Sudanese rivals sign peace pledge

The Sudanese government and rebel leaders signed an agreement today promising to end the country's 21-year internal conflict by the end of the year.

The signing took place before the UN security council, which was holding a special session in Nairobi. During the meeting, the security council also passed its latest resolution on Sudan, offering to support peace processes in the country aimed at ending two civil wars that have left millions dead and many more homeless.

The security council passed resolution number 157 - its third on Sudan - unanimously in a meeting intended to focus world attention on the conflicts in Africa's largest country.

Aid organisations immediately criticised the UN body for failing to take a tougher line over the embattled western region of Darfur.

"From New York to Nairobi a trail of weak resolutions on Darfur has led nowhere," said Caroline Nursey of Oxfam. "Yesterday Oxfam was unable to get vital aid to 200,000 people in Darfur who are cut off by renewed violence ... We needed the council to take action now, not yet more diplomatic dithering."

Ahead of the meeting, human rights groups had called for an arms embargo or the threat of sanctions against Khartoum.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, acknowledged the gravity of the situation.

"I regret to report that the security situation in Darfur continued to deteriorate despite the ceasefire agreement signed earlier," he told council members at the headquarters of the UN's environment and human settlements agencies.

Sudanese vice president Ali Osman Taha and rebel leader John Garang, the main peace negotiators, pledged to end the conflict in southern Sudan by the end of last year, but they missed the 2003 deadline and two more deadlines after that. This is the first time, however, that the warring parties have put a deadline in writing before the security council.

The new security council resolution is intended to push for the rapid conclusion of a two-year peace process to end the 21-year conflict in southern Sudan, while also highlighting the need to end 21 months of fighting in Darfur.

Britain's UN ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, said the security council expected all sides in the conflicts to comply with the call for an end to violence and that it "needs to be ready to take tougher action".

The Nairobi meeting is only the fourth time the security council has met outside its New York headquarters since 1952. In a rare address by a rebel leader to the council, Mr Garang said the only way to avert tragedy was "to install a broad-based coalition government of national unity". He told members that only four issues remained to be resolved before a comprehensive agreement ending the southern war could be signed.

Mr Taha said that his country was committed to peace and that he agreed a new government would be able to resolve the country's problems swiftly.

Sudan's Islamic government against has been fighting rebels seeking greater autonomy and a greater share of the country's wealth for the largely Christian and animist south since 1983. The conflict has left more than two million people dead, largely through war-induced hunger and disease.

Another conflict in the western Darfur region started in February 2003, when the government attempted to crush two non-Arab African rebel groups who took up arms to fight for more power and resources, and backed Arab militias who are accused of targeting civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson.

Washington believes the militias have committed genocide, the US ambassador to the UN, John Danforth, said. At least 70,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since March in the region because of disease, hunger and hardships from being uprooted. At least 1.8 million people have been driven from their homes.

Many more have been killed in fighting since the conflict started, but no firm estimate exists.

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