Angela M. Mistretta, Ceasefire in Darfur: The 7 year-old war should finish on the 15th of March.

 The Sudan President Omar al-Bashir foretold the breaking-news the international community was waiting for since a lot of time: apparently the Darfur conflict is going to be finished.

The Darfur conflict devastated the African continent for 7 long years, engendering an upsetting toll: 450 thousands of died and the Diaspora of more than 1 million of people.

This statement of the President represents also a real gratification for the Italian Community of Sant’Egidio, which is self-labeled as a “public association made up by the lay people of the Church” (http://www.santegidio.org/).

The Community is considered one of the most important non-governmental moderator of the conflict: it indeed succeeded to led the government parts to the ceasefire accord with the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement), one of the principal rebel groups in the Region. The agreement, signed on the 23^rd of February in Doha, Qatar, also represents the result of a rapprochement between Sudan and Ciad, because the JEM group has even been protected by the government of Ciad, in the past times.

The agreement set a truce in the combating until the definitive peace, which will be signed on the 15^th of March.

Momentarily, the first result of the truce is the liberation of 57 JEM rebels: 50 of them were charged by death sentences. The Sudan Minister of Justice also declared that in the past period the number of releasing will be increased.

This changeover could be explained simply remembering that the President Bashir has been charged of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Court of Aja, directing to him an arresting warrant.

If we consider that every death sentence should be ratified by the President we can also easily understand the political strategy of Bashir: in April Sudan will be interested by political elections and in 2011 there will be a referendum to decide if the Southern Regions of Sudan should be independent or not. This last one is a really critical point because these parts of the Country are the richest in oil.

For this reason is actually not at all sure as hell if a genuine and real aim is moving this peace process or if the groundwork of this declaration is just a political strategy.