Sudanese govt, rebels discuss political settlement to Darfur crisis

ABUJA, Oct 29, 2004 (Xinhua) — Delegates of the Sudanese government and Darfur’s two rebel groups began to discuss a political settlement to a 20-month-old crisis in the troubled region Friday, the fifth day of the African Union (AU)-sponsored peace talks in Abuja.

Mohamed Tugod Lissan, head of the Sudanese Justice and Equity Movement (JEM) delegation to peace talks regarding the crisis in Darfur, speaks to journalists in Abuja, Nigeria, Thursday Oct. 28, 2004.

“We presented our position of declaration of principles in the morning session. The main point we would like to present in the political issue is power sharing and wealth sharing,” said Ahmed Tugod, spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of the two rebel groups in Darfur.

According to the original agenda set by the AU, the two sides should complete and sign the protocols of humanitarian issue, security, politics and economic and social affairs in sequence.

But the rebels, the JEM and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM),have been insisting that they would not sign a humanitarian protocol agreed in last month’s talks until the sensitive security arrangement was completed.

The demand led to the collapse of the first round of peace talks, which ran between Aug. 23 and Sept. 17 in Abuja.

And this time, since little progress was achieved in the past five days, all parties decided to shift the focus to the political issue.

The talks are to continue Saturday.

But a committee set up by the AU officials earlier this week will continue the negotiation of a security protocol, parallel to the formal talks.

Meanwhile, AU officials have worked out a new draft security protocol. Both the Sudanese government and the rebels said that they had studied it Thursday night and would discuss it with AU officials separately Friday afternoon.

According to the draft protocol available to Xinhua, the AU expressed its “utmost concern over the repeated violations of the relevant provisions of the humanitarian ceasefire agreement, signed in N’djamena, Chad, on April 8, 2004, and the prevailing insecurity in Darfur, notable the persistent attacks and other abuses against civilians.”

The draft protocol also demanded the immediate disarmament of a militia force known as Janjaweed by the Sudanese government as well as the rebels. The Janjaweed was believed to be responsible for killings and looting in Darfur, but the government denied relations with it.

The talks are yet another effort by the AU to solve African problems by Africans. The 53-member bloc has made headway into resolving the Darfur conflict since a summit in Ethiopia in July, but the process remained slow.

Clashes in Darfur flared up in February 2003, and has so far caused thousands of deaths and sent about one million fleeing to neighboring Chad or internally displaced.