Sudan, rebels to sign pact Jan. 10

KHARTOUM, Sudan - The Sudanese government and the country's main southern rebel group will sign a peace agreement Jan. 10 in Kenya to end more than 20 years of civil war, a senior government official said Saturday.

The government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army had pledged to finalize an agreement to end the longest-running war in Africa by Dec. 31, making a commitment last month before the U.N. Security Council which met in Nairobi to spur the peace talks.

The north-south war has pitted Sudan's Islamic-dominated government against rebels seeking greater autonomy and a greater share of the country's wealth for the Christian and animist south. The conflict is blamed for more than 2-million deaths, primarily from war-induced famine and disease.

Gutbi el-Mahdi, political adviser to President Omar el-Bashir, told the official Sudan Media Center that the government and SPLA negotiators decided to continue talks over the holidays to resolve outstanding differences before the agreement is signed.

"The final signing for peace will be on Jan. 10 in the presidential palace in Nairobi," el-Mahdi said, adding that it would be a cause for public celebrations both in the north and the south of Sudan.

U.N. and U.S. officials hope that a solution to the war - which will include a new constitution and power-sharing government - will spur an end to the separate conflict between government-backed forces and rebels in the western Darfur region.

An estimated 70,000 people have died in the conflict, which has driven 1.8-million from their homes since non-Arab rebel groups took up arms in February 2003 against what they saw as state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.

The government responded with a counterinsurgency campaign in which the janjaweed, an Arab militia, has committed wide-scale abuses against the African population.

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