Darfur Agreement – Sudan says yes, rebels still reticent
April 29, 2006 (ABUJA) — The Sudanese government said it was ready to sign a deal brokered by the African Union (AU) to bring speedy peace to the war-torn Darfur region despite reservations over some of its contents.
But on the eve of the AU’s deadline for an agreement, the divided Darfur rebel movements voiced reticence about the peace accord, which they are negotiating at talks in Nigeria with the Khartoum goverment.
“The government is prepared to sign the (AU) document even with our reservations. Our reservations are important but they are not as important as to spoil the peace process,” a spokesman for the Khartoum delegation told reporters in Abuja.
“The top priority for the government of Sudan is peace and stability,” spokesman Abdulahman Zuma added.
“We also want the AU to claim victory over this crisis. We do not want to let the AU down and that is why we have given a lot of concessions in all aspects of this peace process,” he said.
“We appeal to all parties to exert the utmost degree of concession and to show that we are capable of resolving the reservations we have about the AU document.”
But Ahmed Hussain, spokesman for one of the Darfur rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), told reporters his side wanted prior guarantees from the international community that the peace deal would be enforced.
“Before we sign the agreement, we need a clear guarantee from the African Union and the international community that the contents of the peace pact will be respected by all the parties to the conflict,” he said.
“This is our major reservation about the agreement. We want to be sure of the implementation and the mechanisms for it. The movements believe that when dealing with the government in Khartoum we need all the assurance that we can get. But the AU does not seem to understand our point of view,” he continued.
“We want these our reservations to be inserted in the AU peace document before we sign it.”
The rebel movements are also insisting on having the Arabic translation of the AU document to ensure that the contents are similar “legally and administratively” to those of the English version, Hussain said.
African Union spokesman Noureddine Mezni said that while the AU was ready to explain “grey areas” in the document to any of the parties, it was not disposed to change the peace document, which, he said, was drafted in conjunction with the international partners, including the League of Arab States.
The presence of the United Nations special representative for the Sudan, Jan Pronk, and the AU chairman’s special representative on Darfur, Baba Gana Kingibe, was expected to give a fillip to efforts to persuade the parties sign the peace deal ahead of the deadline.
The Darfur crisis has claimed more than 300,000 lives, while around two million others have been displaced since the civil war broke out three years ago.
The UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, went to Sudan on Saturday amid growing calls for the government to end abuse of human rights, particularly in its suppression of the Darfur uprising.
UN officials said Arbour was due to meet senior government officials and rights activists and visit Darfur and south Sudan.
The visit comes amid concern that the grave humanitarian crisis in the western province has only worsened.
Since her visit in 2004, Arbour has issued two major reports on the situation in Sudan, one focusing on sexual violence and the other on the general human rights situation.
Arbour has been highly critical of the Sudanese government, accusing it of continuing to support Arab militias known as Janjaweed, blamed for abuses in Darfur.
US President George W. Bush on Friday pressed Khartoum to bring end the conflict in Darfur, which his government has termed genocide.
“The message to the Sudanese government is: We’re very serious about getting this problem solved. We don’t like it when we see women raped and brutalised,” the president said at a White House press conference.
(ST)