Darfur negotiators meet on row over power, wealth sharing

Dec 9, 2005 (ABUJA) — Delegates at the AU-sponsored peace talks seeking an end to the 33-month-old crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region returned to the negotiating table Friday in a bid to resolve a row over power and wealth sharing, an AU spokesman said.

“The meeting of the commission on power sharing is now under way. While that of wealth sharing will start at 4:00 pm,” Nouredine Mezni told AFP.

“The representatives of the government of Sudan and those of the movements are expected to respond to a compromise proposal by the AU,” he said.

He said the meeting on power sharing was initially slated for Thursday night but had to be postponed to allow the region’s two rebel movements to reach a compromise with delegates from the Khartoum government on some contentious issues.

The row over power sharing had almost stalled the latest round of talks which resumed on November 28.

“The government of Sudan does not want to concede the vice presidency to the south nor to Darfur. It also does not want Darfur to be considered a single region,” said Ahmed Hussein Adam, spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

Previous negotiations were undermined by regular ceasefire violations, and the United Nations has warned the Darfur region is falling into chaos, with murder, robbery and rape on the increase.

War broke out in February 2003 when the rebels — the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the JEM — began fighting what they say is the political and economic marginalisation of the region’s black African tribes by the Arab-led regime in Khartoum.

Up to 300,000 people have died and more than two million fled their homes in what UN aid agencies have dubbed world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

(AFP/ST)