Sudan rebels announce 24-h peace-talk boycott, alleging govt attacks
By DANIEL BALINT-KURTI, Associated Press Writer
ABUJA, Nigeria, Aug 28, 2004 (AP) — Sudanese insurgents on Saturday announced a 24-hour boycott of peace talks for war-ravaged Darfur, alleging that government forces and allied Arab militia were attacking civilians even as rebels and government officials tried to negotiate an end to the fighting.
The two rebel groups said they would shun talks Sunday in Nigeria to protest alleged attacks on civilians in Darfur, a region of western Sudan where more than 30,000 people are thought to have been killed in 18 months of violence that has forced over one million from their homes.
Earlier Saturday, Sudan’s government said an African Union proposal to send up to 2,000 peacekeepers into Darfur would not be discussed at the talks, which began Monday in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
“While the negotiations are underway in Abuja, the government of Sudan troops and their militia have violated the cease fire,” said a statement from the rebel Justice and Equality Movement and Sudan Liberation Movement.
The two rebel groups and the government signed the cease-fire at talks in April in Chad, but neither side has respected it and fighting has continued in Darfur.
“A number of villages have been bombarded by helicopter gunships and aircraft while others have been attacked and torched over the last three days,” they said.
The most recent attack took place Saturday at the village of Klikel Abdousalaam, the rebels said, alleging that Sudanese soldiers and Arab militia known as the Janjaweed burned homes. Two people were killed and two others injured, the insurgents said.
But the rebels said the most deadly of the recent attacks came Thursday, when 64 civilians were killed in a raid on the village of Yassin.
The rebels’ accounts of the attacks could not be independently verified.
The insurgents said they would return to talks Monday.
Sudanese officials were not immediately available for comment. But they have repeatedly denied that Sudanese troops target civilians in Darfur or support the Janjaweed, as alleged by the rebels, the United States and the United Nations.
A June 30 U.N. deadline is looming for Sudan’s government to rein in the Janjaweed. The largely Arab militiamen are accused of raping and killing black African civilians, and the U.S. Congress and some aid groups say they are committing a genocide.
The Sudanese government has agreed to allow 300 AU troops into the Iraq-sized region to protect a team of AU observers monitoring the cease-fire, but it has resisted pressure to accept a larger force with a peacekeeping mandate, which would allow the soldier to protect civilians.
Sudanese Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs Mohammed Yusuf made clear Saturday his country had no intention of discussing such a proposal at the talks, even though the agenda included an ambiguous call for discussion of “strengthening of the AU peace support mission in Darfur.”
Yusuf told The Associated Press that the AU proposal was “not an issue which could be discussed.”
About 150 Rwandan soldiers are already on the ground in Darfur, protecting the 80 observers there, and another 150 Nigerian troops are expected to leave for the region on Monday.
Rebels took up arms against Khartoum in February 2003 after long-simmering disagreements over land rights and other issues. An earlier round of peace talks in Ethiopia broke down in July.