KHARTOUM, July 28: Sudanese saw real hope here on Sunday they will finally “bury the body of war” after the landmark talks and handshake in Uganda between President Omar el-Beshir and rebel leader John Garang.

“Although it was their first meeting, it was the most important one,” trumpeted Sudan’s independent daily Al-Watan. “It has opened the road to reasonable dialogue and a just peace for the Sudanese people.”

Beshir and Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), pledged in Kampala on Saturday to “rally popular support behind” the peace process and build “national consensus on a comprehensive political settlement.”

The meeting came a week after government-SPLA talks in Kenya produced a blueprint to end a war which began in 1983 when the SPLA took up arms on behalf of the mainly non-Muslim south against the Muslim, Arabised north.

People in the streets of the capital longed for an end to Africa’s longest war.

Shopkeepers and labourers who watched the handshake on state television said they sensed the end of the war on the horizon and hoped the government would soon be able to turn its energies toward reviving a shattered economy.

“I’m very happy that the war will come to an end,” predicted Ahmed, a butcher. “The price of lamb will go down as the cost of raising livestock will be lower.”

Omar, who does odd jobs at a market, sensed an “approaching peace. The government’s spending on war will be directed toward services and developing Sudan. And Sudan will be something else.”

Babiker, who is also a casual laborer, said “at last we will no longer suffer from the war. I don’t want anybody to die in the war like my son Osman.”

The war and related famine have killed up to 1.5 million people and displaced more than four million others, according to aid workers.

Al-Watan said the developments of the past few weeks marked a sudden transformation for Beshir, a career military officer who seized power in a coup in 1989.

“President Beshir is now a champion of peace. Earlier he was champion of war,” Al-Watan declared.

“We do hope the same spirit of national responsibility will prevail until all of us will celebrate burying the body of war and fighting, and embrace each other and live in a stable and prosperous Sudan, God willing,” it said.

After five weeks of negotiations ended on July 20 in the Kenyan town of Machakos, the two sides agreed to a protocol that will give southern Sudan administrative autonomy for a six-year period and exclude it from the Islamic law applied in the north.

At the end of the six years, according to the Machakos protocol, the southerners will be asked to vote on whether they want to remain part of the country or secede.

Beshir said after returning home Saturday that he believes Garang will stand for the union of Sudan.

For the Khartoum Monitor, an English-language daily, the symbolism of the cordial meeting in Kampala was important.

“Beshir and Garang shake hands and Antonov bombers turn into cargo planes, and tanks become road graders, fighters become nurses and farmers, the destitute become business executives, famine gives way to food security, malnutrition disappears, suspicion gives way to trust, generosity shatters selfishness, Sudan discovers itself and reaches a point of no return on the way to peace,” it said.—AFP