Deal to end Sudan's civil war brings hope at last

A breakthrough in negotiations between Sudan's fundamentalist government and its rebel enemies has excited hopes of an end to Africa's oldest and bloodiest civil war.

Five weeks of talks in Machakos, Kenya, have resulted in an unprecedented agreement between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

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 short lifespans; most observers had written off these talks before they started but now some say this time might be different.

"This is a major breakthrough," said 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 war in Sudan is the bloodiest since the Second World War. The SPLA, which is ethnically African, has been fighting the northern, Arab-dominated government since 1983 in a conflict that has caused an estimated two million lives and displaced a further four million people.

Sudan has become a cause célèbre in the US in recent years thanks to an eclectic coalition of campaigners. Conservative Christians such as the Rev Franklin Graham, son of the preacher Billy Graham, and confidant of President George Bush, have been to the fore. They characterise the war as a struggle between Islam and Christianity, a view many Sudanese see as an over-simplification.

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. 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 be agreed, most notably how to share the revenues from Sudan's lucrative oil reserves.

Large oilfields straddling the front line between the two sides have been the cause of a brutal escalation in fighting in recent years. Government helicopter gunships and troops have violently cleared hundreds of thousands of villagers from the oil zone, which is being exploited by a consortium including Canadian, Austrian and Swedish firms.

In one instance in February, a gunship opened fire on villagers queuing for food, killing two children. Although the oil companies have claimed they are non-partisan, it is clear their operations are fuelling the government war effort.

There has been a sharp increase in bombing raids by the government's ageing Antonov planes since oil exploration started. The advocacy group Sudan Focal Point conservatively estimates that 190 civilians have died in the past 18 months. Last month alone there 34 raids. The government also encourages tribal slave raiding to protect a strategic railway line.

As a consequence, the regime of President Omar El-Bashir – who came to power in a 1989 coup – has become an international pariah. Foreign aid and investment have dried up and the United States has parried all moves by Khartoum to return to international acceptability, blocking its application for a UN Security Council seat two years ago.

Since 11 September, however, the Sudan government has gone to great lengths to persuade the US it is on its side, even to the extent of releasing intelligence files to the CIA.

Britain is also playing an important role. Alan Fletcher Goulty, who has wide experience of Sudan, was recently appointed as a special ambassador to the country, while British, Norwegian and American diplomats helped broker the weekend deal.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain would continue to offer "full support" to the process.

Hopes for a lasting peace are clouded by a long line of failed peace initiatives – most recently involving the American envoy Senator Jack Danforth – but this time 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 of a settlement in almost two decades.