Senegal’s Wade urges Darfur rebels to sign accord
Aug 6, 2006 (AL-FASHER) — Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade on Sunday appealed to rebels in Sudan’s violence-torn Darfur region to join a peace accord to stop the conflict from spreading wider in central Africa.
In a visit to Darfur’s main town, Wade directed his appeal to the two Darfur rebel groups that have not signed an African Union-backed May peace deal for the turbulent western region, where tens of thousands have been killed since 2003.
Wade, who is visiting Sudan and Chad to defuse tensions between the two feuding neighbours, has invited their presidents to peace talks in Dakar on Wednesday. He extended this invitation to the Darfur rebels still holding out.
“I ask these other factions to come and meet me in Dakar so that together they can join the accords. In that way, we can all work for peace in Darfur,” he told reporters.
Wade met Minni Arcua Minnawi, whose Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebel faction was the only one to sign the May peace deal brokered by the AU, whose 7,000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur has been struggling to secure the region.
Since a 2003 rebellion in Darfur against the central government in Khartoum, fighting there has killed tens of thousands of people and 2.5 million have been forced from their homes in a humanitarian disaster that has shocked the world.
Tens of thousands of Darfuris have protested against the May peace deal, saying it does not meet their demands.
Wade said the Darfur conflict had already spilled beyond Sudan’s borders into Chad and Central African Republic.
“If it’s not sorted out, it could spread in the whole sub-region,” he said.
Wade, who is respected in the AU and enjoys good relations with the United States and the West, has been seeking to persuade Sudan’s government to accept an expanded United Nations peacekeeping force for Darfur.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has rejected the proposed U.N. troops, saying they would come with “colonial and imperialist” ambitions.
Wade, seeking to allay these fears and repeating a proposal made this month by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, said troops from Muslim countries could be included in any enlarged U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur.
“Sudan is a member of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), from where we could choose soldiers from the Islamic world,” he said.
He added Senegal, which is largely Muslim, would be willing to more than double the number of its soldiers serving as peacekeepers in Darfur. Close to 400 Senegalese soldiers are in the AU contingent already there.
Wade held talks in Khartoum later on Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(Reuters)