Signing of peace deal set for Sudan

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NAIROBI, Kenya -- One of Africa's oldest and bloodiest civil wars may be nearing an end as the government of Sudan and southern-based rebels today formally sign a peace deal strongly backed by the Bush administration.

The architects of the deal, Sudanese First Vice President Ali Osman Taha and rebel military commander John Garang, said yesterday they hoped the complex pact to end a 22-year-old insurrection also would boost prospects for peace in Darfur, the western Sudanese region where a government-backed campaign to crush a separate rebellion was called a "genocide" by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in September.

Mr. Powell, who will witness the signing of the agreement at a soccer stadium in the Kenyan capital, finessed questions yesterday over whether the Khartoum government was still guilty of genocide, despite a new U.N. status report that found violence in Darfur was increasing and the government was beefing up its forces in the region.

"I hope that this government will show to the people of Darfur and to the belligerents of Darfur a new face," Mr. Powell said, "and that the new unity government can persuade the rebels to enter a political process and not keep attacking."

He sidestepped a question on whether government-supported Arab militias remain engaged in the genocidal campaign against Darfur's black-African population.

"My judgment [in September] was that genocide was taking place," he said, adding he had not seen the latest U.N. report.

The accord would end a war that has claimed an estimated 2 million lives and bring a measure of stability to a country that has known only 11 years of peace since independence in 1956.

While the ethnic, religious and political crosscurrents in Sudan are fluid and bewilderingly complex, the crux of the various disputes has been resentment by Sudan's various regions to dominance by a small Arab Muslim elite based in Khartoum.

Disputes over territory, government jobs, revenues and oil -- much of it located in the rebellious south -- have only intensified the conflict.

U.S. human rights and Christian conservative groups also have pressured the U.S. government to act to protect black Christian and animist groups in the south from the Islamic north.