Darfur rebels reject peace deal, talks continue

April 30, 2006 (ABUJA) — Talks were under way Sunday to try to salvage a peace agreement for Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region after rebel groups refused to sign it hours before the deadline to end the conflict.

SLA rebels talkwithan AU officer August 2005.

Rebels were due to meet again Sunday evening with mediators from the African Union (AU) and international bodies after an earlier meeting ended with the UN representative for Sudan Jan Pronk urging them to sign the deal.

But the deal looked in peril after two rebel groups earlier announced their refusal to sign it and the AU insisted the content of the agreement would not be changed as Sunday’s midnight deadline loomed.

The rebel Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had issued statements of a “joint position” not to sign the AU-brokered peace accord.

“This document is not acceptable to us, and we are not going to go by it or sign it,” JEM spokesman Ahmed Hussain said.

The rebels were also due to meet separately with Pronk ahead of the evening meeting, JEM chief negotiator Ahmed Tugod said.

The talks are aimed at ending a conflict in Darfur that has killed 300,000 people and displaced 2.4 million in three years of fighting.

After an hour-long meeting Sunday afternoon, participants agreed to meet for a full session later in the day, one of them told AFP. But AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni warned the mediators’ assignment “is over at 12:00 midnight.”

“A couple of hours’ slip is no problem, of course, you can stop the clock and continue,” Pronk said after the afternoon meeting.

“But the AU has set the deadline. I think the moment of truth is now. We have reached more or less the end of possibilities. (The rebels) have to sign tomorrow,” he added.

“As mediators, the AU deadline and document will not change,” the AU spokesman said earlier in reaction to the rebel statements.

“Our position is supported by the UN Security Council and if the agreement is not signed they know what to do,” he added.

Pronk insisted after the afternoon meeting that the AU document was “workable”, but warned the rebel parties would have to bear the “political consequences” if the Sudanese government signed but they failed to do so.

“I did remind the parties this afternoon on the need to sign the agreement, but you cannot continue day after day repeating the old positions. It is not a serious representation of the people who you claim to fight for,” Pronk said.

“If the government of Sudan is willing to accept the pressure of the international community to sign, and the parties are not ready to do so, then they have to bear the brunt,” he said.

“And these are political consequences which the UN Security Council will decide.”

Reservations raised by the rebels include claims that the AU document did not consider giving the vice presidential political post to the Darfur region, or adequately resolve other power-sharing and wealth-distribution issues.

The Sudanese government delegation from Khartoum on Sunday reiterated its readiness to sign the peace accord. “The (Sudanese) government commits itself fully to apply the accord in good faith,” it said in a statement.

Pronk praised the behaviour in the talks of the Sudanese government. “They have taken a decision that they can sign the document though they said they did not like the document a hundred percent,” he said.

“Of course (the deal) doesn’t satisfy all the parties 100 percent. It is not possible to satisfy all. We need to compromise,” said Pronk, who is due to present a report on the process to the UN Security Council.

“I have the hope that the parties will be reasonable to understand that this is important,”, he added. The rebels “should be willing as leaders to take a risk. If not, they are not worthy to be leaders.”

(ST)