Church officials are cautiously optimistic that the recently signed peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement will translate into real peace.

"The Sudanese people have been very patient," Father Anthony Bangoye, secretary-general of the Nairobi-based Sudan Catholic Bishops' Regional Conference, told Catholic News Service.

"God has heard their prayers after 21 years of war," he said. "This (peace agreement) was the cry of all the people. Now we are waiting for the implementation."

On Jan. 9, Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and John Garang, leader of the rebel group, signed the agreement, which consists of eight protocols spelling out how the North and South are to share wealth and power, how they will manage their armies jointly and separately, the commitment to a permanent cease-fire, the separation of state and religion, and other arrangements.

The peace agreement allows for a six-year interim period after which Southerners will decide, in a referendum, whether to remain a part of Sudan or secede. During this time, Shariah, or Islamic law, remains in force in the North but does not apply in southern Sudan.

Father Bangoye said now that the two sides have a peace agreement the church has much work to do.

"For the moment, the priorities are schools, health programs and HIV/AIDS. Now, since the peace agreement has been signed, they (dioceses) will have a clear idea of development and the way forward," he said.

The priest said the bishops' conference has issued guidelines to the dioceses on how to welcome and integrate the hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people expected to return to their homes in the coming months.

Father Pascal Boffelli, an official of the Diocese of El Obeid, Sudan, told CNS whether or not peace has come to Sudan "is still a big question mark," particularly on the side of the Sudanese government.

The government needs money to be able to implement the promises made in the peace agreement and must go beyond talk, while the South needs to get organized and begin reconstruction activity, said Father Boffelli.

"We will sit down and watch what they will do," he said.

Sudan's civil war has claimed an estimated 2 million lives and displaced many more since its inception in 1983.

The conflict pitted a largely Muslim North against a Christian and animist South. The fighting also centered on oil-rich areas in the South; human rights groups accused the Sudanese government of forcibly removing Southerners from oil-producing regions to make the area more secure for foreign oil companies.

Church and human rights groups throughout the years have criticized the Sudanese government for attacking southern populations and denying them badly needed humanitarian assistance. The rebel army also has been censured for committing human rights abuses in the South.

During the war, bishops from the South often could not meet with bishops from the North. Because of the violence, many of the southern bishops spent much time out of the country, so they set up the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Regional Conference, based in Nairobi.

At the peace agreement signing ceremony in Nairobi, northern and southern Sudanese sang, prayed and danced as they witnessed the peace deal's endorsement.

A peace worker and community activist with the New Sudan Council of Churches, Awut Deng, said southern Sudanese women in particular were longing for the day when the two sides would declare peace.

"We have lost our children, we have lost our husbands, we have lost our brothers; we are separated from our families, and we are displaced and we have been enslaved," she said.

"So for us to have this peace agreement, it shows us that we are going to start from the beginning, to rebuild our lives, to be able to take care of our children who are left orphans. This is not a peace that has come from nowhere. It is a peace that is coming through bloodshed."

---CNS