Darfur rebels undecided as deadline for peace nears
April 29, 2006 (ABUJA) — A peace deal for Sudan’s Darfur region hung in the balance on Saturday as disunited rebel movements tried to decide whether to accept or reject a proposed agreement before Sunday’s deadline.
African Union (AU) mediators in Nigeria have presented an 85-page draft settlement, the result of two years of tough negotiations on security, power-sharing and wealth-sharing between the rebels and the Sudanese government.
“We want to have consensus within the movement before giving our final position,” said Abduljabbar Dosa, chief negotiator of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebel group.
The government on Thursday submitted to the AU a list of reservations it had about the draft, but it has said the document is a good framework for a deal. Observers say the main obstacles now are on the side of the rebels.
Infighting among the rebels, which are split into two groups and three factions, has been a problem throughout the peace process. They are now having a hard time deciding what to do.
Field commanders from Darfur have joined the negotiating teams in Abuja as the rebels seek to unite their positions.
They have yet to officially respond to the AU, but several leaders have said they are dissatisfied with the draft.
Their main problem with the document is that it does not meet their demands for Darfur to get a new post of Sudanese vice president and a new regional government. They have other objections on issues ranging from compensation to disarmament.
International pressure on the warring parties to reach an agreement before the AU’s April 30 deadline has intensified in the past few days. On Saturday, the U.N. special envoy for Sudan, Jan Pronk, was due to meet both sides to encourage them to seek compromises.
In the United States, protests were planned in several cities over the weekend to increase pressure on the Sudanese government to stop violence that Washington has called genocide.
DONOR FATIGUE
The SLA and the smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) took up arms in ethnically mixed Darfur in early 2003 over what they saw as neglect by the Arab-dominated central government.
Khartoum used proxy Janjaweed militias drawn from Arab tribes to crush the rebellion. The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people while a campaign of arson, looting and rape has driven more than 2 million from their homes into refugee camps in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.
A ceasefire was signed in 2004 but all sides have continued fighting, according to the AU which has 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur. Violence has escalated to the point that vast areas are off-limits for aid workers.
The international community has made repeated appeals for an end to the conflict, but at the same time donor countries appear to have tired of the conflict, according to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).
The WFP said on Friday it would cut food rations for some 3 million people in Darfur after receiving only 32 percent of its annual appeal for funds for Sudan.