Sudan VP: Darfur crisis solution possible by year’s end

Mar 10, 2006 (PARIS) — The Sudanese vice president said Friday that he believes a solution to the Darfur conflict can be found by the end of the year, maybe sooner.

Salva Kiir Mayardit, himself a former rebel, called on western Darfur rebels to put down their arms and said he was confident that talks between them and Sudan’s national unity government will intensify.

“They have shown anger by taking up arms. Now it is time to put down the guns and reason with the government,” he told reporters. “I don’t see the reason why the government can’t bring peace in Darfur from this time up to the end of the year.”

Asked to elaborate, he added: “Maybe before that.”

Mayardit was in Paris to attend a two-day World Bank conference that brought together representatives from Sudan’s national government and the regional government in the south, along with international organizations and donor countries.

They reviewed the effectiveness of $1.8 billion of aid donors pledged to Sudan following a January 2005 peace agreement. The deal ended a 21-year-long civil war between the national government in Khartoum and rebels in the south.

Only a fraction of the money — $50 million — went to rebuilding the devastated southern region, said Ishac Diwan, World Bank country director in Sudan.

The bulk of the funds went to humanitarian relief, notably in Darfur, he said.

An estimated 180,000 people have died and some 2 million have been displaced since a 2003 revolt by rebels from Darfur’s ethnic African population. The Arab-dominated Sudanese government is alleged to have responded by unleashing Arab militias, which carried out sweeping atrocities against ethnic African villagers.

Jan Pronk, the U.N.’s chief envoy to the region, said the ongoing Darfur crisis “cast a cloud” on Sudan and called for “an immediate end to hostilities on the ground.”

He said that the situation in Darfur — described by the U.N. as the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis — had “negative implications” for continued aid to south Sudan.

(ST/AP)