A new agreement between Sudan's government and the southern rebel group addresses the insurgents' grievances, reports Declan Walsh, in Nairobi
A breakthrough in negotiations between Sudan's fundamentalist government and its rebel enemies has brought fresh hopes for an end to Africa's oldest and bloodiest civil war.
Five weeks of negotiations in the sleepy Kenyan town of Machakos resulted in an unprecedented agreement between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on Saturday.
Although the deal does not include a ceasefire, it addresses the core grievances of the southern rebels - the right to self-determination and the separation of Islam and the State - that have plagued peace efforts for over a decade.
Previous peace initiatives, paralysed by deep mistrust on both sides, have had dizzyingly short life spans; most observers had written off these talks before they started. But now some are saying that this time might be different.
"This is a major breakthrough," said Father Dan Eiffe, a Catholic priest turned aid worker who is one of the rebels' main foreign advocates. "I believe the war could be over in a matter of months."
The conflict in Sudan is the world's bloodiest since the second World War. The ethnically African SPLA has been fighting the northern, Arab-dominated government since 1983 in a war that has cost an estimated two million lives and displaced a further four million people.
Sudan has become a cause celèbre in the US in recent years thanks to an eclectic coalition of campaigners ranging from Christian and Jewish groups to black rights activists and O.J. Simpson's lawyer. Some present an over-simplified view of a war between Islam and Christianity, but their actions have made Sudan a hot foreign policy issue.
The SPLA is fighting for self-determination - a point finally conceded by the government in the weekend agreement, which allows for a referendum on the issue in six years' time. In the interim, the south will be ruled by a partly independent, secular government and will not be subject to sharia law.
First, however, there must be a ceasefire. That could be signed as early as September, but some thorny issues must still be agreed, most notably on how to share out the revenues from Sudan's lucrative oil reserves.
Large oilfields straddling the front-line between the two sides have been responsible for a brutal escalation in fighting in recent years. Government helicopter gunships and troops have brutally cleared hundreds of thousands of villagers from the oil zone, which is being exploited by a consortium including Canadian, Austrian and Swedish firms.
Irish company Petrel Resources plc recently presented a proposal to the Sudanese government to drill for oil and gas in the Red Sea. Any such operation would not be on the front-line, although Petrel could be accused of helping the government fund its war.
There has been a sharp increase in bombing raids by the government's ageing Antonov planes since oil exploration started. Advocacy group Sudan Focal Point conservatively estimates that 190 civilians have died in the past 18 months. There were 34 raids last month alone.
The government also encourages tribal slave raiding to protect a strategic railway line.
Condemnation of these brutal tactics has turned the regime of President Omar el Bashir, who came to power in a 1989 coup, into an international pariah.
However, since September 11th the government has redoubled its efforts to return to international respectability.
A long line of failed peace initiatives offered little hope for success in Sudan.
This time, however, both SPLA and government claim they will be able to iron out the remaining differences between them.
If they are right, this could be Sudan's best chance for peace in almost two decades.