Church leaders relieved about signing of truce to end Sudan civil war

by Fredrick Nzwili
Ecumenical News International

NAIROBI — Church leaders have breathed a sigh of relief that Sudan’s government and the rebel Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army have signed a permanent cease-fire in Kenya, paving the way for ending one of Africa’s longest running civil wars.

       Ululations greeted the signing of the cease-fire agreement on Dec. 31 in the town of Naivasha, and another accord on the sharing of this power, wealth, and administration of three disputed areas of the Nuba Mountains, Abyei and southern Blue Nile.

      “We can now prepare to go home,” the Rev. Daruka Nyagak of the Episcopal Church of Sudan told Ecumenical News International in Naivasha, about 80 kilometers west of Nairobi. Nyagak lost all her children in the 21-year civil war between the mainly-Muslim north and the predominantly animist and Christian south.

      The Sudanese government and the southern rebels had already signed preliminary agreements on the formation of a coalition government, the decentralization of power, the sharing of oil revenues, and the integration of the army. These protocols give autonomy to the south for six years, after which there will be a referendum in the region on secession.

      “Every issue has been agreed on,” said Kenyan General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, the chief mediator. “We have components that will form the comprehensive peace agreement.”

      Roman Catholic Bishop Akio Johnson Mutek, auxiliary bishop of the diocese of Torit in Sudan, said people did not only want peace agreements to be signed but also to be implemented.

      The diocese’s retired bishop, Paride Taban, said churches were now preparing to accompany thousands of people returning home after living in exile for years. “We have been hoping and praying,” said Taban.

      “It is the responsibility of the continent to engage in post conflict reconstruction,” said South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, who witnessed the ceremony, noting that the agreements had taken time, patience and understanding.

      The Rev. David Owen of the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Focus on Africa Program, now based at the All Africa Conference of Churches in Nairobi, said the church conference had given strong support to the Sudanese peace process.

      Melaku Kifle of the WCC, speaking from its Geneva headquarters, said the global church grouping was considering assembling a team to monitor any violations of the comprehensive peace agreement once it had been signed.

      The accords signed in Kenya do not touch on another conflict, in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people have been made homeless by fighting between government and rebel groups.