Global Policy Forum

By Michelle Faul

Sudan's government said Saturday that a peace accord with a main insurgent group enabled it to welcome U.N. peacekeepers to the troubled region of Darfur, as mediators worked to persuade the rest of the fractured rebel movement to join the process.

The peace agreement with one branch of the Sudan Liberation Army was reached Friday in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, after two years of sporadic negotiations. It aims to end three years of ethnic bloodshed that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million civilians.

The Sudanese government so far has allowed only African Union peacekeepers on the ground. The underfunded African forces have largely been ineffective in stopping atrocities and reestablishing security, leaving tens of thousands of refugees in camps with little food or water.

Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in Darfur, a vast region about the size of France, erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003, with rebels demanding regional autonomy. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Janjaweed militias upon civilians, a charge Sudan denies.

The peace deal calls for a cease-fire, disarmament of government-backed militias, the integration of thousands of rebel fighters into Sudan's armed forces and a protection force for civilians in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Yet there were concerns that the deal could fall apart. Both sides have a history of failing to honor agreements, and the fledgling accord was struck with only one rebel group and only after intense pressure from the United States, which sent Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick and letters from President Bush.

On Saturday, mediators were still trying to persuade the second-largest rebel group -- another branch of the fractured Sudan Liberation Army, backed by the Fur tribe, Darfur's largest -- to join the deal after it walked out of a signing ceremony Friday.

Fighting has intensified in recent days, which has been interpreted as fighters jockeying for territory before the signing. Abdulwahid El Nur, leader of the splinter rebel faction, met Saturday with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Earlier, he called the peace deal "criminal," saying it failed to adequately address core grievances that have festered over decades of neglect by the central government. Mediators said they were offering no new concessions in the plan backed by the African Union, United States, Britain, the European Union and the Arab League.

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