Talks on Darfur struggle on, as Khartoum accused of rights abuses
NDJAMENA, April 2 (AFP) — Mediators struggled to bring together the two sides in the conflict in west Sudan’s Darfur region, as the Khartoum government was accused of backing massive human rights violations by militias against non-Arab civilians.
The mediators in the Chadian capital Ndjamena finally managed to gather representatives of the two sides in the same building, but not in the same room, three days after peace talks were due to begin.
More than 10,000 people are thought to have died in just over a year of vicious skirmishes in Darfur between rebels and government-backed militia groups in the region.
An estimated 670,000 people have also been forced from their homes, many seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.
United Nations officials have branded the Darfur war as currently the “world’s greatest humanitarian and human rights catastrophe”.
The UN High Commission for Human Rights said Friday in Geneva it hoped to send a team within days to probe allegations of widespread atrocities by government-backed militia in Darfur.
The move came as New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report Friday urging Khartoum to disarm and disband the militias.
The report, “Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan”, claims Khartoum backs a scorched-earth campaign in the region and that government forces and militias of Arab descent have joined together to kill, rape and loot civilians.
The civilians targeted are from non-Arab ethnic communities from which the two main rebel groups draw their members. The groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, are both represented at the talks in Ndjamena.
Human Rights Watch said Khartoum would “have to answer for crimes against humanity that cannot be ignored”, saying it had armed up to 20,000 of the militiamen and allowed them to “operate with full impunity”.
Sudan’s military is “indiscriminately bombing civilians”, while government and militia forces are “systematically destroying villages and conducting brutal raids against the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups”.
Aid agencies Friday also launched an appeal for 30 million dollars from donor governments to step up help for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
The aid is primarily aimed at 110,000 refugees from Darfur who have fled across the border into Chad, since access to internally displaced Sudanese is nearly impossible.
“We estimate that there are 1.2 million people who need aid in the region, but we are only reaching 300,000 of them for security reasons,” said Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme.
The peace talks in Chad began Wednesday but so far have made little progress. Chadian mediators and diplomats from the African Union have met with both sides, but have not yet brought the two parties together.
The rebels were insisting that international observers be present once the two sides sit down toegether, but the Sudanese government representatives have so far opposed this.
Sudanese sources at the talks said they were also concerned that the rebel representatives might not have sufficient authority to sign any deal that might be agreed in Chad.
Meanwhile in Khartoum, authorities stepped up their campaign against the Islamist opposition Popular Congress.
On Wednesday, Islamist leader Hassan Al-Turabi was arrested and later charged with damaging the country’s security, following claims that a coup attempt linked to the Darfur conflict had been thwarted.
Another major conflict in Sudan erupted in 1983 when the south, where most people confess to Christianity and numerous traditional religions, took up arms to end the domination of the wealthier, Arabised and Muslim north.
Talks to end that conflict are drawing to a conclusion in Kenya.