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Chad says Darfur rebel JEM is scheming

ABUJA, June 22 (AFP) — A Chadian delegation to peace talks where the African Union (AU) wants to end a devastating conflict in Sudan’s neighbouring Darfur province accused rebels there of scheming to scapegoat Chad.

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One top envoy from Ndjamena, Ahmad Allam Mi, said the team “deplores a misinformation campaign accusing Chad of being behind obstacles to the smooth running” of the AU’s long bid to end a war between the Khartoum government and two rebel groups in Darfur that has killed or displaced millions.

Allam Mi, a diplomat and advisor to Chad’s President Idriss Deby, told AFP the delegation “denounces scheming intended to use Chad as a scapegoat … to ends contrary to the mediators’ mandate, exclusively about settling the conflict.”

His target was the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of the two rebel groups in Darfur alongside the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), which has said Chad is biased and Tuesday stepped up the rhetoric to accuse it of “committing genocide”.

Since Chad’s delegation arrived in the Nigerian capital on June 15 to join the AU as co-mediators, every bid to get all participants round one table to end a war that has killed at least 180,000 people and displaced 2.4 million has stalled.

A spokesman for the AU mediators, Sam Ibok, said four hours of separate talks on a draft declaration of principle (DoP) key to a settlement were held on Tuesday, but a planned plenary session was postponed by 24 hours and the Chad issue had been taken up by heads of state.

The DoP, the latest stage in a process that stalled for months over truce violations by both sides before resuming on June 10, lays the groundwork for a political deal, in the wake of military measures and ahead of discussion of power-sharing and the distribution of wealth.

The declaration reaffirms principles of unity, sovereignty, the territorial integrity of Sudan, federalism in the biggest country in Africa, respect of diversity and the end of impunity for those committing serious human rights offences.

The SLM, after objecting, has agreed to Chad’s role in the talks, but the JEM has adopted an increasingly hard line. And in Eritrea’s capital Asmara, a JEM spokesman said forces from the movement had taken part in a completely separate joint rebel offensive in east Sudan launched on Monday.

One member of the team from Chad, which has taken in around 200,000 of the black African population that has fled Khartoum’s Arab militia allies in Darfur, said the JEM “wants to have people believe it still exists” and had objected to Chad to gain weight.

“The SLM controls the terrain, the JEM represents nothing,” the delegate told AFP, asking not to be named. “They’re trying blackmail, backed by certain countries.”

Amid mounting rhetorical heat Tuesday, the AU team headed by special envoy Salim Ahmed Salim held a meeting with international partners and observers, as well as Chad and Eritrea, whose presence in Abuja is ruled out by Sudan’s government.

“The issue of Chad in the resolution of the crisis is beyond what we can handle,” Ibok said, adding it was taken up by host President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria “who is busy consulting with his peers Idriss Deby of Chad, Moamer Kadhafi of Libya, and AU Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare.”

Allam Mi on Wednesday said JEM president “Khalil Ibrahim, who has never taken part in previous rounds (of talks), should solely accept responsibility for obstacles to the process after setting the exclusion of Chad as a pre-condition for discussions.”

“The process will all the same not be stopped for the Chadian mediators, who started it and plan to go through with it until the end, that is a definitive settlement of the Darfur conflict.”

In April 2004, Chad did get the parties to the war to agree to a truce, but it was never respected on the ground. Despite all the difficulties caused by a new row, triggered by the arrival of the Chadians, AU mediators have pressed on with separate meetings regarding the DoP.

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