US, UK hike pressure for Darfur peace deal
May 2, 2006 (ABUJA) — Senior U.S. and British officials flew into the Nigerian capital on Tuesday, piling pressure on the warring parties from Sudan’s Darfur region to strike a peace deal before a midnight deadline.
The government of Sudan has accepted the 85-page draft settlement but two main Darfur rebel groups refuse to sign, saying they are unhappy with the deal over security, power-sharing and wealth-sharing.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Britain’s International Development Secretary Hilary Benn arrived in Abuja on Tuesday and diplomats said their presence could help jolt the rebels into signing.
“Despite all its shortcomings, this process has yielded a draft agreement which is the best the (rebel) movements will get ever,” said Alex de Waal, an adviser to the African Union (AU), which is mediating the talks.
“They have to make the shift from criticising the many injustices that they and their people have suffered, to seeing that a much better future can be grasped on the basis of this agreement.”
The peace talks have dragged on for two years while the conflict in Darfur has escalated. Mediators say failure to get a deal now will lead to more bloodshed and suffering in Darfur.
A collapse of the talks would also be a serious setback for the AU, which seeks African solutions to African problems.
The top two AU officials — Chairman Denis Sassou Nguesso and commission head Alpha Oumar Konare — are set to arrive in Abuja on Wednesday, which diplomats said could indicate that the deadline, already put back by 48 hours, will slip again.
NEGLECT
The rebels took up arms in early 2003 in ethnically mixed Darfur, an arid region the size of France, over what they saw as neglect by the Arab-dominated central government.
Khartoum used militias, known locally as Janjaweed and drawn from Arab tribes, to crush the rebellion. The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people while a campaign of arson, looting and rape has driven more than 2 million from their homes into refugee camps in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.
Washington, which labels the violence in Darfur “genocide”, is intensifying efforts to resolve the conflict.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Monday for a robust UN force to bolster a 7,000-strong AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur. Khartoum has so far rejected the idea.
In Abuja, Zoellick joins U.S. diplomats trying to engineer a last-ditch deal whereby the sides would trade concessions on two contentious security issues.
Under a U.S. proposal, a section of the AU draft that requires the government to disarm the Janjaweed before the rebels lay down their weapons would be amended to better suit the government.
In return, Khartoum would accept a detailed plan for integration of specific numbers of rebel fighters into the Sudanese security forces. This is a key rebel demand.
“We are looking into the proposal. A compromise could be reached,” said Amin Hassan Omar, spokesman for the government delegation.
The rebels, however, have given mixed signals on prospects for a deal. Decision-making is arduous for them as they are split into two movements and three factions with a history of infighting.
Their leaders have repeated for months that they will not drop certain major demands such as a post of Sudanese vice president for a Darfurian and a new regional government. The AU says meeting these demands in full is impossible.
(Reuters)