Warring factions in Sudan's Darfur region last week concluded a peace agreement that is designed to end three years of vicious fighting. The deal is not perfect. Several of the warring factions are not signatories, and only concerted intervention by outside powers, including the African Union, the Arab League, and the United States produced the agreement. Nonetheless, it is a start and with continuing attention to and pressure on all parties, real peace might be possible.
Sudan is deeply divided along religious -- Muslim and Christian -- and ethnic -- African and Arab -- lines. Fighting broke out in Darfur, a region the size of France in Sudan, when rebels had had enough of discrimination and neglect by the Sudanese government, which is more Arab and Islamist in Khartoum. A bitter and bloody struggle ensued.
The Sudan government has used militias called janjaweed, drawn from nomadic Arab tribes, to do their dirty work. The janjaweed gained an international reputation for atrocities, using arson, looting and rape to terrorize rebels and their supporters. As many as 180,000 people are thought to have been killed since fighting began and more than 2 million people have been driven into refugee camps.