JUBA — On this day, 9th January, in 2005, Sudan marked a historic turning point when the warring Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the National Congress Party (NCP) signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The CPA formally ended the Second Sudanese Civil War, a conflict that had lasted over two decades and claimed the lives of an estimated two million people.
The agreement was the result of prolonged negotiations mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) with strong regional and international support.
Key provisions of the CPA included a six-year interim period of shared governance between North and South Sudan, wealth and power sharing arrangements, particularly regarding oil revenues, security arrangements, including the formation of Joint Integrated Units, and recognition of the right to self-determination for Southern Sudan through a referendum.
The 250-page agreement created an extensive system of relations between the north and the south. Experts described it as a document of tremendous intricacy, a stark reminder that Sudan was torn by multiple intersecting conflicts and not just by a division between the Arab and Islamic north and the African and Christian or animist south, as is often portrayed.
The CPA paved the way for the 2011 referendum, in which the people of South Sudan voted overwhelmingly for independence, leading to the creation of the Republic of South Sudan on 9 July 2011.
Despite later challenges and conflicts, the signing of the CPA remains one of the most significant milestones in Sudanese and African peace-making history.