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Muslim on Muslim killings in the western Darfur region of Sudan have become the next roadblock to peace in the country. After two decades of civil war, Sudan seemed near to a peace settlement between the Northern Muslim government and the Christian and animist South, which occupies oil-rich areas in the upper Nile. A cease-fire was signed between the North and South in October 2002, but the North has repeatedly violated it. President Bush also signed the Sudan Peace Act in 2002, which required the U.S. government to act if Sudan did not begin to negotiate peace within six months. Over two million people have died as a result of the war.

Franklin Graham recently visited the country urging peace, and Colin Powell predicted that by December 2003 a peace agreement would end the civil war. So far, no hopes for peace have been fulfilled.

What some are calling a genocide campaign in the Darfur region has further stalled the peace process. On the 10-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, many are urging the U.S. to put a stop to the Khartoum government's killing. The government is arming Arab Muslim militias and encouraging them to destroy villages and kill black Muslims in Darfur.

According to The Washington Times, the conflicts between North and South and in Darfur are connected:

Sudanese Ambassador Khidir Haroun Ahmed told The Washington Times in an interview at his embassy last week that "the two phenomena are related." He said that "the people in Darfur saw the approaching settlement [between Khartoum and the southern rebels] as leaving them out of things."

The ambassador acknowledged that the western uprising posed dangers for peace in Sudan. "How can you make peace, when it is not a comprehensive peace at all because part of the country is in flames?" he asked rhetorically.

As the North/South peace process neared completion, rebel groups in Darfur began an uprising to protest an oil-sharing agreement between the North and South. The Washington Times writes:

According to reports from East Africa, the rebels feared that Darfur would be left with virtually nothing. Moreover, they feared that once the North-South conflict was settled, the government could throw its full weight against the Darfur rebels.

The government has thrown considerable weight against the rebellion despite the failure of the peace process between the southern Christians and Northern Muslims. According to Samantha Power, writing in The New York Times, "the Sudanese government is teaming up with Arab Muslim militias in a campaign of ethnic slaughter and deportation that has already left nearly a million Africans displaced and more than 30,000 dead."

President Bush has been praised for his actions shepherding the peace process between the North and South, hopefully we won't see him visit the country once the killing is over (as President Clinton did in Rwanda) and say he knew nothing of what was going on.

Reuters is reporting that a ceasefire agreement is imminent, and that the two sides have decided on the broad terms of an agreement. A spokesman for a rebel group said, "`We have not signed yet, but we have moved closer to an agreement on a cease-fire. We have agreed on the broad lines and basic points.'' The Khartoum government, however, has agreed to peace settlements before—seemingly to appease outside political pressures—yet has failed to abide by the terms of the agreement.

A fuller picture of the situation of Christians in the country is available on Christianity Today's Sudan page, especially a Bearing the Cross report on the country.

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April (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48