African leaders tackle Darfur truce in Chad talks

By Betel Miarom

N’DJAMENA, Feb 16 (Reuters) – African heads of state met in Chad on Wednesday to seek ways to enforce a ceasefire in Sudan’s western Darfur region where both sides to a civil war that has killed tens of thousands have repeatedly violated the truce.

Idriss Deby meets with Omer el-Bashir, in Khartoum, on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 (AFP) . .

Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, his Chadian counterpart Idriss Deby and the leaders of Gabon and Congo Republic arrived in N’Djamena for the mini-summit. African Union Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare was also present.

A two-year conflict in Darfur has killed at least 70,000 people and forced around 2 million people from their homes.

Previous agreements to stop fighting and disarm have been repeatedly flouted by both rebels and government forces and there have been close to 100 confirmed ceasefire violations since late last year.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who chairs the African Union, had been expected to take part in the talks but officials said he would instead send his minister for African integration.

A Sudanese official said on Tuesday that the talks would be held in the context of the ongoing African efforts to resolve the Darfur conflict through peaceful means.

Representatives of Darfur’s two main rebel groups — the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) — were also expected in N’Djamena for separate talks with Sudanese government officials on Wednesday.

After years of tribal conflict over scarce resources in arid Darfur, the rebel groups took up arms in February 2003, complaining of discrimination and harassment of African villagers by Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.

The Janjaweed have been accused of a campaign of looting, burning, killing and rape in Darfur. The government says it recruited militias to fight the rebellion but not the Janjaweed, which it calls outlaws.

It has committed to disarm the Janjaweed in several agreements with rebels and the United Nations.

Around 200,000 refugees have fled across the border from Darfur into eastern Chad, stretching the desert nation’s budget and fuelling tensions with locals in the arid border areas.

A U.N. commission of inquiry found last month that Darfur’s civilian population had suffered war crimes at the hands of Arab militia and that these may amount to crimes against humanity, although it stopped short of using the term genocide.