Confusion, violence as Darfur parties head to talks

Sept 14, 2005 (ABUJA) — Negotiators from the Sudanese government and two Darfur rebel movements said on Wednesday they were heading to Nigeria for a new round of peace talks despite an escalation of fighting.

Sudanese rebel gunmen prepare to patrol the village of Muhajiriyah in rebel-held South Darfur, Sudan, on Oct. 23, 2004 .

The talks were scheduled to resume on Thursday, but appeared unlikely to start on time as none of the key negotiators had arrived in Abuja by Wednesday afternoon and some of the rebels said they had yet to begin travelling from distant locations.

On Tuesday, a leader of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), the bigger rebel movement, said the government had killed 10 fighters and at least as many civilians in attacks aimed at derailing the peace talks.

SLA chairman Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur said his group would go to Abuja but the talks would have “no future” if the government kept up the attacks. The army denied government forces were involved in any violence in Darfur, a vast desert region in western Sudan.

Against this backdrop, negotiators were making complicated travel arrangements to reach Abuja.

“The government delegation will arrive on Thursday morning by special flight from Khartoum,” said Khalil Abdelrahim, Sudan’s ambassador to Nigeria.

He said the African Union (AU), the main mediator, was considering holding an opening session in Abuja and then taking the negotiators to a secluded location to focus minds.

“I think they want them to be in a place where they can negotiate seriously … It’s easier to conduct negotiations and direct consultations between the people, everybody will be available, not moving around the city,” he told Reuters.

REBEL DISUNITY

It will be the sixth round of talks in Abuja in over a year. The fifth round, which ended on July 5, yielded a declaration of broad principles but left the detail for later. Rebel disunity was one of the factors slowing progress.

An SLA official in the Eritrean capital Asmara said their delegation, headed by Nur, would leave for the two-day journey to Abuja on Thursday morning after a delay caused by confusion over flight tickets.

He added that he was unaware of the plans of other SLA groups based elsewhere as they did not talk to each other.

A spokesman for the smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said negotiators would arrive in Abuja from Darfur and various countries over the next two days.

The SLA and the JEM took up arms in early 2003 over what they see as discrimination and neglect by the government, which responded by backing Arab militias to drive non-Arabs from their villages, according to the rebels.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and driven some 2 million from their homes into overcrowded refugee camps in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.

The AU has about 3,000 troops in Darfur monitoring a fragile ceasefire.

(Reuters)