AU MPs counsel Sudanese to end Darfur crisis

NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 18, 2005 (PANA) — The Pan African Parliamentary Select
Committee Friday urged authorities in Khartoum to urgently move
to end atrocities in the western region of Darfur and preserve
the credibility and distinction of Sudan as a sovereign state.

A Sudanese policeman stands guard as a group of women take part in a peace march to celebrate a government sponsored tribal reconciliation ceremony in South Darfur state of Mossai, February 17, 2005. (Reuters).

The Pan African Parliamentary Select Committee on the Darfur
crisis, which was in the country to compile a special report on
the two-year conflict, observed that authorities in Khartoum “are
facing challenges of relevance and could lose the distinction of
a sovereign state.”

The Pan African legislative assembly, which set up the committee
last year during its second sitting in South Africa, moved to
assert its political influence, telling Sudanese and Darfur rebel
leaders to move forward in the talks aimed at ending the
atrocities in Darfur.

“The present African Union is not like the former Organisation of
African Unity (OAU), whose policy was non-interference. We have
told the Sudanese authorities that their relevance is to be
determined by the care they give to people under their control,”
said Abdu Kintuntu, chairman of the Parliamentary Select
Committee on the Darfur crisis.

“This matter (Darfur crisis) should be solved very soon. The
situation in Darfur is like hell. The people are suffering and as
the voice of the African people, we want them (Sudan authorities)
to move fast to avert the suffering of the Darfur people,” said
Kintuntu, a Ugandan legislator.

The six legislators drawn from South Africa, Gambia, Mauritania,
Uganda, Guinea-Conakry and Libya conducted a three-month
assessment on the Darfur crisis and are due to present their
report to the Pan African Parliament at the end of March.

The mission met with representatives of the main Darfur rebel
groups and six cabinet ministers in Khartoum, the Speaker of
Parliament, members of the Ceasefire Commission and African Union
diplomats to get a firsthand appraisal of the situation.

They said talks were fruitful and led to Darfur rebel leaders to
change their positions on several issues.

“There is not a single force in Sudan which says the war is a
secession war. This is the fight for fair distribution of
resources and democracy in Sudan. The Darfur people are not
calling for a new state, this is a democratic struggle,” Kintuntu
told a news conference in Nairobi after meeting with the rebels.

Leaders of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Sudan
Liberation Army (SLA) met with the African Parliamentary Select
committee but the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) failed to
meet the committee.

The MPs said they hoped to bring a new perspective to the AU
search for a solution in Darfur, saying they were exploiting the
political and economic equations to the conflict as well as
gathering data on the feelings of the Darfur people.