 Violence in Sudan's bloodied Darfur region won't end overnight despite a peace agreement signed by the government and the main rebel group, a top US envoy to the talks said Friday.
| When the events on the ground don't match the words on the paper, it's probably the paper that's wrong. |
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who helped nail down the accord in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, hailed it as an "important step" toward ending one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. "But now we must turn to other vital steps including implementation," an admittedly exhausted Zoellick told reporters in a conference call from Abuja.
| Right. Once I made the decision to regrow my hair the important part was done. But now I have to turn to other vital steps, including implementation. |
Zoellick expressed hope the accord would produce a "significant decline" in the bloodshed in Darfur, where three years of fighting has left up to 300,000 people dead from attacks, famine and disease, and some 2.4 million homeless.
| A "significant decline" would be, say, 100,000 deaders and 1.5 million homeless. That just doesn't seem like progress to me. |
"Is it going to change overnight? I wouldn't say that," he added. "Darfur is going to remain a dangerous place and it's going to remain a place of violence."
Zoellick, Washington's point man on Sudan, made his remarks after the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction signed a peace deal for Darfur although other rebel groups refused to go along. The accord offers a referendum in the arid desert region, and obliges the government, which the United States has accused of genocide, to disarm and neutralise its Janjaweed militia allies by mid-October 2006.
| Since they're trying to invade Chad with the Janjaweed, I don't see that happening. |
It also provides for the rebel movements to be represented in the Sudanese government, and creates a fund for the reconstruction of Darfur. But Zoellick admitted that monitoring the agreement would present challenges until a 7,000-strong African Union peacekeeping contingent in Darfur is beefed up and eventually expanded into a larger UN force with NATO support.
| That'd be the UN force with NATO support that Bashir's opposed to... |
"There's still a lot of distrust and fear on the ground. There's a lot of danger on the ground," he said.
| I'd distrust people who were trying to kill me, too. |
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