African leaders try to solve Sudan’s Darfur conflict without UN sanctions

By KHALED AL-DEEB, Associated Press Writer

TRIPOLI, Libya, Oct 18, 2004 (AP) — Saying they hoped African leaders could solve what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis without sanctions, the leaders of Egypt, Chad, Nigeria and Libya discussed the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region with the Sudanese president on Monday.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, right, talks to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, left, during a meeting on Sudan’s Darfur region in Tripoli, Libya Sunday, Oct. 17, 2004

The “mini-summit” at a Tripoli hotel began late Sunday, after the five leaders broke their day-long fast together for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and headed into a well-guarded downtown hotel.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi wore a crimson African robe and a headdress as he entered the summit. Journalists were not allowed to attend the meeting.

One topic reportedly was a proposal that Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and Chad create a committee to mediate between the Khartoum government and the rebels in Darfur. There was no word on progress at the meeting, which was expected to last into the morning.

Heading into the summit, the spokesman for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the summit was intended to prove that African leaders can solve their own problems _ apparently a jab at efforts in the United Nations to force Sudan to end the fighting.

“What is important is to make Sudan comply with its (international) commitments. Threats of sanctions will not solve the problem,” said the spokesman, Magid Abdul Fatah.

Sudan faces the threat of U.N. sanctions as the U.N. Security Council investigates allegations leveled by the United States and some humanitarian groups that the government and allied militia in Darfur are guilty of genocide.

The conflict in Darfur has grown since February 2003, when two rebel groups took up arms against the government. It has since grown into a counterinsurgency in which pro-government Arab militiamen have raped and killed non-Arab villagers.

Nearly 1.5 million people have left their villages to flee the violence, and tens of thousands of people have died. Some of the refugees have crossed into neighboring Chad, where conditions are dire.

“We are all here to try to reach a peaceful solution to end this problem. We are all concerned to find a solution which will not only solve the security and the political problem, but also the humanitarian problem,” said Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam.

The five countries’ foreign ministers held a meeting earlier in the day, but released no details of their talks.

A delegation of the smaller of Darfur’s two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement, traveled to Tripoli but was not allowed to participate in the summit.

The group’s leader, Khalil Ibrahim, called on the leaders to persuade Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir to find a peaceful resolution, and predicted more bloodshed if a resolution is not found.

“If the government will not listen to the voice of reason, the battle will move into Khartoum itself,” he said.

The larger rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army, did not travel to Libya. “We don’t have time to go there without knowing why we’re going there,” said SLA spokesman Abdul Latif, based in Britain.