The Nairobi Event.

To cries of "Allah-u-Akhbar" and "Hallelujah", Sudan's Islamic government on Jan. 9 and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) signed the peace agreement. Several thousand onlookers - most of them Sudanese refugees who had known nothing but war in their homeland - danced with glee at a central sports arena in Nairobi as Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLM chief Dr. John Garang initialled the accord, which had been years in the making.

Whether peace in one part of Sudan helps to quell the crisis in Darfur remains a major unknown. The agreement signed on Jan. 9 is designed to ease the combatants towards peace. It is fraught with potential complications. But, if successfully implemented, it could help bring development to one of the most destitute and disease-ridden regions in the world.

Southern Sudan has lived in a time warp for decades. Modern war planes have been flying overhead, throwing down bombs, but down below people have been living in squalid conditions, many without such basics as schools, roads or health care. On Jan. 10, The New York Times (NYT) quoted Bulkuer Malyok, a chief from the predominantly Christian but partly animist southern Sudan who travelled to Nairobi for the signing ceremony, as saying: "We're tired of running and suffering and dying". The NYT quoted Grace Datiro, 35, who fled the war for neighbouring Kenya soon after it began in 1983, as saying: "Half my life has been spent in exile". Jubilant, she added: "I hope my children don't have to be refugees like I was. I pray that this fighting is over forever and that we can finally live in peace".

Dr. Garang will become a vice president reporting to President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, a general who seized power in a coup in June 1989. Other SPLM leaders and commanders from its army (SPLA) will hold key positions in the central government and the military establishment.

Previous attempts at negotiation went nowhere and this round of talks, started in 1997, have tottered numerous times close to collapse. Putting former foes together in the same government is an experiment which has been tried elsewhere in Africa, with mixed results.

Rwanda erupted into genocide in 1994 after a peace deal there between Hutus and Tutsis failed to win the support of Hutu extremists. Congo signed a peace agreement in 1999 but true peace has remained elusive to this day as the country remains awash in guns. Burundi's power-sharing government is yet to win over all the rebel factions wreaking havoc in that country. The lesson in all those cases has been that peace is a process, often a long one full of setbacks. As the NYT put it: "The signing of a deal, while a milestone, is as much a beginning as an end".

"It's a big day but I'm not euphoric", said John Danforth, the American ambassador to the UN and President George W. Bush's former special envoy to Sudan. "It's like climbing Mount Everest. You reach one pinnacle and there are ranges of mountains behind". Lazaro Sumbeiywo, the Kenyan general who acted as chief mediator during the talks, called the agreement "a precious child to nurture with love and care".

The tasks to come are immense. Southerners must create a functioning government from scratch. Armies must be merged. Mines must be removed. Decisions, usually reached by fiat in Khartoum, must be struck by compromise. Few expect Khartoum to allow a split to occur but the referendum is considered a major incentive for inclusive rule in the years ahead.

The north-south agreement can serve as a precedent, if not an exact blueprint, for a political settlement in Darfur based on regional autonomy and participation at national level. The question now, vital for Sudan's future stability, is how much room a new power-sharing government will give other political forces from the country's periphery. The Jan. 9 agreement itself is full of potential pitfalls.