Darfur peace lies in separate southern deal: US
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM, Sept 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. envoy to Sudan said on Thursday that a political solution to the Darfur crisis in the country’s west lies in a peace agreement in its south which decentralises power and calls for elections.
The official, Charles Snyder, said rebel divisions had hindered Darfur peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, adding the groups should not take a U.S. declaration of genocide in Darfur as a green light to make unreasonable demands.
“The political solution to Darfur ultimately lies in the federal process within Naivasha that is the decentralisation of power,” Snyder told reporters after meeting Sudanese officials.
“Without that…we have to negotiate a political settlement of a much more complex variety.”
First Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha is due to return to the Kenyan town of Naivasha on Oct. 7 to restart delayed peace talks to end more than two decades of civil war in Sudan’s south, which has claimed more than two million lives.
The separate Abuja talks on Darfur collapsed last week, but are due to reconvene in October and Snyder said they should deal only with a ceasefire and ways to increase aid to the 1.5 million people displaced by the rebellion in the remote area.
But he warned Sudan should not lose sight of the southern peace deal because attention is on Darfur.
“There’s a bigger Sudan that’s at risk,” he said. “You’ve seen some of the references that this could turn into a Somali-style crisis if it gets out of hand and it could.”
Somalia has no central government and is ruled by warlords.
A ceasefire for Darfur was signed in Chad in April, but African Union monitors have confirmed 20 violations.
The interior ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters on Thursday that rebels attacked a village in West Kordofan state last week, killing eight civilians.
The conflict erupted last year after years of low-level conflict between African farmers and Arab nomads when two rebel groups launched a revolt, accusing the government of arming marauding Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn African villages.
Khartoum denies the charge, calling the Janjaweed outlaws.
The U.N. estimates more than 1.8 million people are in need of aid in Darfur, with about 200,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad, triggering what the world body calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on Saturday threatens Sudan with possible oil sanctions if it fails to stop the Darfur violence and allow more AU monitors. Sudan says the resolution fails to recognise their efforts to solve the emergency.
Snyder warned the rebel movements not to ask for too much. “They need to be reasonable about this. Just because we’ve used the word genocide doesn’t give them the moral equivalent of a free pass,” he said.
(Editing by Scott McDonald, Khartoum newsroom, +249 912 167 378)