The changes across the landscape here would have been hard to imagine just a few years ago. The rebel groups that started the war in Darfur in 2003, catalyzing a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, almost seem to have gone into hibernation. So, too, have the infamous janjaweed, the marauding bandits who raped, killed and terrorized countless civilians. And this planting season, for the first time since 2003, United Nations officials say that tens of thousands of farmers who had been seeking refuge in squalid displaced persons camps returned to their villages to plant crops, a journey many Darfurians would have considered suicide until recently.
The rebel groups that started the war in Darfur in 2003, catalyzing a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, almost seem to have gone into hibernation. So, too, have the infamous janjaweed, the marauding bandits who raped, killed and terrorized countless civilians.
And this planting season, for the first time since 2003, United Nations officials say that tens of thousands of farmers who had been seeking refuge in squalid displaced persons camps returned to their villages to plant crops, a journey many Darfurians would have considered suicide until recently.
The uneasy peace that has kept the two disparate halves of Africa's biggest nation together is under threat As Sudan approaches its fifth anniversary of peace, the fragile accord which has held the north and the south together is unravelling and Africa's biggest country is sliding back dangerously towards what was the continent's longest war. Momentous elections are due in a matter of months, a referendum on separation looms and Sudan's complex ceasefire is in open crisis. All over the south there are soldiers in new uniforms; the army was paid for the first time in six months last week. Around 2,000 people have died in violence there this year and the government of southern Sudan says small arms are pouring across the border. In the north, which is led by Omar al-Bashir, the president wanted for war crimes, opposition leaders have been jailed after protests over democratic reforms and crisis talks in Khartoum have failed to halt public demonstrations."Now we're seeing the crunch," says Sudan analyst John Ashworth. The "endgame" of the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has arrived, he explains, and the fact that "the north gave away more than it could afford" to get the ceasefire means new conflict is almost inevitable. Tunguer Kueigong is among those who think that 2009 will be the last year of peace. In Bentiu, the dusty capital of Unity State, the paramount chief of the Nuer, southern Sudan's second largest tribe, holds court in his "office" under the shade of a mahogany tree. "You know the north will not just let the south separate like this," he says, matter-of-factly. "If it happens, the people must fight." ...
The uneasy peace that has kept the two disparate halves of Africa's biggest nation together is under threat
As Sudan approaches its fifth anniversary of peace, the fragile accord which has held the north and the south together is unravelling and Africa's biggest country is sliding back dangerously towards what was the continent's longest war. Momentous elections are due in a matter of months, a referendum on separation looms and Sudan's complex ceasefire is in open crisis.
All over the south there are soldiers in new uniforms; the army was paid for the first time in six months last week. Around 2,000 people have died in violence there this year and the government of southern Sudan says small arms are pouring across the border. In the north, which is led by Omar al-Bashir, the president wanted for war crimes, opposition leaders have been jailed after protests over democratic reforms and crisis talks in Khartoum have failed to halt public demonstrations.
"Now we're seeing the crunch," says Sudan analyst John Ashworth. The "endgame" of the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has arrived, he explains, and the fact that "the north gave away more than it could afford" to get the ceasefire means new conflict is almost inevitable.
Tunguer Kueigong is among those who think that 2009 will be the last year of peace. In Bentiu, the dusty capital of Unity State, the paramount chief of the Nuer, southern Sudan's second largest tribe, holds court in his "office" under the shade of a mahogany tree. "You know the north will not just let the south separate like this," he says, matter-of-factly. "If it happens, the people must fight." ...
