EU security chief in Chad for talks on Darfur

Oct 9, 2005 (N’DJAMENA) — European Union (EU) security chief Javier Solana, concluding a visit to Sudan and its volatile Darfur region, arrived Sunday in Chad, where the government says Sudanese rebels are also raiding territories.

Solana stopped in N’Djamena after talking Saturday with Sudan’s first vice president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, about the Darfur crisis, which has raged for more than two years and claimed the lives of more than 180,000 people, mainly through famine and disease.

Two African Union peacekeepers were the latest casualties, ambushed and killed Saturday in South Darfur state.

Solana, en route back to Brussels, was in N’Djamena to sound out Chadian President Idriss Deby on the way forward with the Darfur peace process. In the EU view, Sudan’s neighbor is also an actor in and a victim of the Darfur crisis that has sent 230,000 refugees into Chad.

Deby accuses Sudanese militias involved in the Darfur conflict of making raids into his country.

Solana had briefly visited Darfur Saturday, touring a refugee camp of 80,000 people, many living in plastic tents bearing the names of the many humanitarian organizations operating here.

Earlier in the capital, Khartoum, Kiir told Solana that he “has committed himself” to ending the Darfur conflict, the EU official told reporters.

Darfur rebels from black African tribes took up arms against government forces in early 2003, complaining of discrimination and oppression. They have accused the government of unleashing Arab tribal militia known as Janjaweed against civilians in a terror campaign that has also displaced 2 million people.

Kiir also said that ending Darfur’s turmoil was key to resolving other ethnic crises in his country, Africa’s largest, including in eastern Sudan.

Solana and Kiir also discussed implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in January, which ended a 21-year north-south civil war.

Full implementation of the deal and its power-sharing arrangements has been slow due to the death of First Vice President John Garang de Mabior in a July helicopter crash, three weeks after he took office. Kiir was named his successor.

Just last month, Sudan’s new national unity Cabinet was sworn in, incorporating members of the ruling party and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.

(AP/ST)