The Khartoum government and the SPLM began talks about an agreement to end the civil war in 2002. Talks on the role of state and religion and southern self-determination continued through 2004. In January 2005, the two signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which laid out a plan for southern autonomy for the next six years followed by a referendum vote in the South on its independence.
The CPA also includes a power-sharing arrangement for the central government that made SLPM leader Garang the vice president of unified Sudan. When Garang died in a helicopter crash only a few months later, Salva Kiir, his vice president, became the vice president of the central government. He also took over leadership of the SPLM and eventually the South’s government.
In the years between the signing of the CPA and the referendum vote, tensions between the North and South calmed considerably, although they still sometimes boiled over into open conflict.
