Khartoum accepts no-fly zone, signs deal with rebels

The Sudan government has agreed to end military flights over Darfur and has signed a peace deal to end 20 months of hostilities with rebels from the western region. After three weeks of difficult talks sponsored by the African Union (AU) in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, the parties to the conflict late Tuesday signed a series of breakthrough agreements touching on security and humanitarian issues. The deals, which include measures to end further fighting, along with the Sudan government agreement to observe a no-fly zone over Darfur, will enable the launch of massive relief for the more than 1.5 million people displaced by the conflict. The peace talks had been held up by the government’s refusal to agree to the no-fly zone. The two rebel groups attending the talks – the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equity Movement (JEM) – had repeatedly accused government forces of carrying out air attacks in breach of an existing ceasefire. Sudan will do everything to ensure the agreements are implemented, government spokesman Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim told reporters after the signing ceremony. “Only that will bring peace and stability to Darfur,” he said. Both the SLA and JEM welcomed the breakthrough and pledged to keep their side of the bargain, though the SLA, the bigger of the rebel groups, cautioned that the future hinged on the sincerity of the Sudanese government. “There is no problem in Africa that we cannot solve if we in Africa are given the opportunity,'' said Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current AU chairman. The Abuja accord, the first peace deal struck after two previous rounds of talks, is expected to be the foundation “for a comprehensive and lasting political settlement of the conflict in Darfur,” Alpha Konare, head of the AU Commission and former president of Mali, said in a statement. The fighting in Darfur has displaced about 1.45 million people and sent another 200,000 fleeing into Chad. The conflict, which is described by the UN as being responsible for one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, has also caused the deaths of more than 70,000 people from illness and malnutrition. The trouble began when Darfur’s indigenous people took up arms in February 2003, accusing Khartoum of decades of neglect and oppression. In its efforts to pacify the region, President Omar El Beshir's government is widely believed to have backed the Janjawid, a pro-government militia of Arab horsemen accused of atrocities against unarmed civilians. The accord provides for the disarmament of the Janjawid. A United Nations mission is currently in Sudan to investigate allegations that genocide was committed in Darfur. The BBC reported on Wednesday, the day after the signing of the accord, that Sudanese security forces had stormed a Darfur refugee camp near Nyala for the second time in a week. A police commander at the El-Geer camp, where officers fired tear-gas and intimidated refugees, told the BBC that he was under orders to move the people to a new camp. Forcible relocation is a breach of international humanitarian law.