Darfur peace talks go on despite deadline passing
May 5, 2006 (ABUJA) — Western and African diplomats kept the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels talking into Friday in a strenuous push for a peace deal, after a midnight deadline for agreement passed.
Officials had suggested on Thursday the deadline was likely to be breached as all involved worked into the night to secure a deal to end three years of conflict in Sudan’s arid western Darfur region.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick has played a leading role in the past two days, but the negotiations in the Nigerian capital Abuja have dragged on for two years under African Union mediation.
The midnight Thursday (2300 GMT) deadline was the third target set since Sunday.
Western and African diplomats presented the government and the rebels with an amended version of the peace package on Thursday and put them under intense pressure to accept the plan.
“A package has been put together and presented to the parties, but there are no takers yet,” said a senior member of a U.S.-led team of diplomats.
“What we are saying to the (rebels) is, ‘Please take it and then we can put pressure on the government’,” said the diplomat, requesting anonymity.
The government accepted the African Union’s original proposals on security, power-sharing and wealth-sharing but three rebel factions objected to many provisions.
A key sticking point was that rebels felt provisions for integration of their fighters into Sudan’s armed forces were not strong enough.
Other rebel demands include a post of Sudanese vice-president, a new regional government, greater representation in both national and local institutions and individual compensation for war victims.
Mediators say they have been inflexible on these points.
The rebels took up arms in early 2003 in ethnically mixed Darfur, a region the size of France, over what they saw as neglect by the Arab-dominated central government.
Khartoum used militias known as the Janjaweed, drawn from Arab tribes, to crush the rebellion. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, 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.
The U.S.-led diplomatic push of the last two days has focused on trying to engineer a trade-off of concessions on two leading security points.
On the one hand, provisions for the rebels to join the Sudanese army would be improved. In exchange a part of the AU draft on disarming the Janjaweed would be amended in a way that suited the government better.
SANCTIONS AGAINST DEAL BLOCKERS
“The scenario of failure (at the talks) is scary. You can be sure that the government would go after (the rebels),” said one Western diplomat, adding that parties blocking a deal would probably face U.N. sanctions.
Zoellick’s team, along with British International Development Secretary Hilary Benn and numerous European Union and Canadian diplomats, shuttled between government and rebel delegations to try to extract concessions.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who is also African Union chairman, were holding a series of separate meetings with the parties involved.
The rebels are split into two movements and three factions with complex internal politics and a history of infighting, making it hard to get agreement.
Peace talks have dragged on in Abuja while violence has escalated in Darfur to the point that aid workers cannot reach thousands of refugees.
The aid workers say a deal is vital before the rainy season begins in June when planting of food crops must be completed.
Further complicating the situation is a crisis in Chad, which the rebels use as a rear base and where President Idriss Deby is battling insurgents he accuses of fronting for Sudan.
(Reuters)