Rebel SLA division a stumbling block to Darfur talks: AU

Oct 16, 2005 (ABUJA) — Ambassador Bassey Ibok, head of the African Union (AU) delegation to the ongoing inter-Sudanese peace talks on Darfur crisis in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, said weekend that a division within one rebel group “is constituting a stumbling block to the peace talks.”

“There is a division in the rank of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) as to who should represent the movement in the talks, ” he said, adding: “as long as the problem is not solved we cannot make much progress, we are trying to work with the Movement to heal the division.”

The other parties to the talks are the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The AU-sponsored peace talks which began here on Sept. 15 appears to be bogged down as not much progress has been made on the substantive talks on power sharing which started on Oct. 3.

“It is slow. It is frustrating but they (Parties) are talking,” he said.

Ibok, however, said the talks were making slow progress because power sharing was at the root of the crisis in the region.

“The problem is long standing and cannot be solved overnight as there is deep mutual suspicion among the groups. In fact, power is central to the crisis in the area,” the AU head of delegation said.

Because of this, Ibok said the AU was not going to rush into an agreement which could be broken by any of the parties, adding “we want to give them a chance to arrive at an amicable agreement that will be respected by all of them.”

He, however, expressed concern over the situation on ground in Darfur, saying that the AU would have to move faster to douse the tension following the killing last week of two AU soldiers in the area.

Ibok said the troops were not sent to Sudan to be killed or to fight the Sudanese.

The AU head of delegation said that the outcome of the Joint Commission meeting in N’djamena, Chad, which ended on Friday would help the talks to move forward.

Among other things the N’djamena meeting called on the parties to stop their incursions into areas controlled by AMIS and allow free movement of the AMIS troops.

“They are there as brothers. It is therefore the responsibility of the Parties to assist them to do their work and not to kill them, ” he said.

The parties were consulting on the gray areas on the document on Power Sharing. Substantive talks on wealth sharing and security arrangement are yet to begin.

(Xinhua/ST)