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Peace accord signed

Jeffrey Gettleman

KHARTOUM: The Sudanese government signed a peace deal on Saturday with a small rebel movement in the eastern part of the country, an agreement intended to end fighting that lasted for 10 years. According to state-run media, Mustafa Osman Ismail, a government negotiator, and Mussa Mohammed Ahmed, chief of the Eastern Front, signed the deal at the presidential palace in Asmara, Eritrea. Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir called the peace deal an example of ``Africans solving an African problem without foreign help,'' a clear reference to his Government's continuing refusal to allow U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur. The rebels had been conducting hit-and-run guerilla attacks on government forces. Eastern Sudan, like Darfur, is a poor, neglected area, where many people feel disenfranchised. Under the new accord, the Eastern Front will get more representation in the national and regional administrations, including high-ranking posts in Khartoum.

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