IRIN Webspecial on the Sudan Peace Process

While various attempts have been made in the past to bring an end to the civil war in Sudan, ongoing negotiations being held in Kenya under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), have been viewed by many as offering the best chance of bringing peace to Africa's largest country since the current phase of conflict began in 1983.

With real progress in peace talks offering hope of an end to almost 20 years of war, aid agencies are beginning to see improvements in their operating environment on the ground, and many are looking forward to helping the war-torn Sudanese people to finally prosper in a peaceful Sudan.

In this webspecial, IRIN reviews the progress made towards peace in recent months and how this has already had a positive impact on the humanitarian situation on the ground in Sudan. It also attempts to anticipate the obstacles which peace negotiators and humanitarian actors will face in the future, and how they might be overcome.

Breakthroughs made in peace and aid

A framework peace deal signed in July 2002 - the Machakos Protocol - surprised many Sudan watchers, who had become all too used to the depressing cycle of conflict in Sudan, and further steps towards peace were made during a second round of negotiations, held from September to October 2002.

The major humanitarian breakthrough came in October when both the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in which they agreed to allow "unimpeded humanitarian access to all areas and for people in need, in accordance with the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) Agreement."

The humanitarian aspect of the MOU, which was initially to last until the end of 2002, but has been extended while peace talks continue, has been viewed by many as an enormous achievement, bearing in mind the long and troubled history of humanitarian flight denials that has effectively denied aid to many conflict-affected Sudanese.

"In the whole history of OLS, we have never had unfettered access," Ronald Sibanda of OLS said in a statement in October.

The MOU signed by both parties in October at the site of peace talks in Machakos opened the door to a resumption of the all-important negotiations. Crucially, it also included an agreement to implement cessation of hostilities for the duration of talks, paving the way for further agreement on humanitarian access.

OLS, the umbrella operation for UN agencies and NGOs working in Sudan, established in 1989, has been required to routinely submit at the start of each month to the government and the SPLM/A requests for humanitarian flight access to a number of locations in southern Sudan.

In the past, this arrangement has meant that, on average, access would be denied OLS to 25 locations in southern Sudan each month, or about 10 percent of the requests, the UN said in April.

Freedom of access to vulnerable populations - an international humanitarian principle - is guaranteed under a beneficiary protocol of OLS, which established principles for the protection and provision of aid to war-affected populations in Sudan.

Access denied

However, a tightening of restrictions on humanitarian access at the start of April 2002 saw both flight access and general humanitarian access being denied to some 40 locations, cutting off assistance to parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal. These heightened difficulties in gaining access continued for several months, and were only resolved with the signing of the October MOU.

The situation appeared to have reached crisis point in September, when Khartoum imposed a ban on the airspace over two huge provinces of southern Sudan. The nine-day ban over both Eastern and Western Equatoria effectively stopped aid missions operating out of the OLS main logistics base at Lokichoggio in northern Kenya.

The move drew sharp criticism from aid agencies, led to heightened fears for the wellbeing of up to three million conflict-affected people across southern Sudan, and prompted speculation that government forces were about to launch a major offensive against the SPLM/A.

"The international community, led by the United States and members of the OLS agreement, have a responsibility to ensure that all victims of this tragic war receive humanitarian assistance, without further interruptions," Ken Hackett, the executive director of the US-based aid agency Catholic Relief Services, said in October, prior to the signing of the MOU. "There must be a universal understanding that any political negotiations toward peace in Sudan must include and address humanitarian concerns."

The crisis in humanitarian access came at a time when peace talks at Machakos were stalled. Government negotiators had walked out on 2 September, saying the rebel seizure of the town of Torit, Eastern Equatoria, had "spoiled the atmosphere" of the talks.

This breakdown in talks was particularly disappointing to many in the humanitarian community, bearing in mind the signing of a framework peace deal signed at Machakos in July, and the subsequent first face-to-face meeting between Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir and the SPLM/A leader, John Garang.

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