African leaders meet Sudan parties to seek Darfur breakthrough
April 8, 2006 (ABUJA) — Top African Union leaders were due to meet Sudanese government and rebel delegations in the Nigerian capital Saturday to try to end more than three years of deadly conflict in Darfur, officials of the continental body said.
More than 18 months of talks in Abuja between two main Darfur rebel groups and the Sudanese government have yet to yield a breakthrough to end the fighting that created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Chairman of the African Union and Congo Republic President Dennis Sassou-Nguesso will team up with his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo in a meeting with Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha, rebel leaders and mediators, African Union spokesman Nurreidinne Mezni said.
“We have reached a stage when we have to take (a) decision,” Mezni said, adding that the meeting was expected help push the parties to an agreement. He did not give any further details.
Both the main rebel Sudanese Liberation Army and the smaller Justice and Equality Movement will be attending the meeting with guarded optimism, said Ahmed Hussein, a spokesman for the two groups.
“Because we are not the only parties in this meeting, we can’t predict the outcome,” Hussein said.
The Sudanese government delegation said after recent consultations it had with Obasanjo and special African Union envoy Salim Ahmed Salim, it was hopeful a draft peace document acceptable to all sides will “be available by mid-April.” Saturday’s meeting would be a boost to the negotiations, the delegation added in its official statement.
More than 180,000 people have died in the Darfur conflict with millions more driven from their homes.
Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in Darfur, in western Sudan, erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 when ethnic African tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated central government of neglect.
The central government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab tribal militias known as Janjaweed to murder and rape civilians and lay waste to villages. The central government denies backing the Janjaweed.
(ST/AP)