Darfur peace deadline passes amid tense talks
May 5, 2006 (ABUJA) — The African Union’s latest deadline for a peace deal in the Sudanese region of Darfur expired as international mediators continued to hold intense discussions with the warring parties.
African and western diplomats had urged the Sudanese government and Darfur’s two rebel movements to sign an accord by midnight on Thursday or face isolation and the threat of United Nations sanctions.
But the deadline came and went amid ongoing negotiations in the Nigerian capital Abuja, hosted by President Olusegun Obasanjo and the chairman of the African Union, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo.
Rebel delegates were waiting outside a meeting of African leaders and international mediators as midnight passed, but there was no clear sign that a deal was imminent, a reporter at the talks’ venue said.
Earlier, US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Britain’s minister for international development, Hilary Benn, had met both sides and urged them to approve a modified version of an AU text that the rebels rejected on Sunday.
Separately, the Austrian presidency of the European Union appealed to the rebels to agree to the deal, which has already been accepted by the Sudanese government, saying failure to strike an accord would be “irresponsible.”
UN humanitarian relief coordinator Jan Egeland also warned that a huge aid operation in the devastated western region of Sudan could be jeopardised.
Fighting erupted in the western Sudanese region of Darfur in early 2003 when the self-styled Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement rebelled against the rule of the Arab-led government in Khartoum.
In response, the regime unleashed the Janjaweed militia against Darfur’s black African civilian population, triggering a conflict which has left more than 180,000 people dead and driven around 2.4 million from their homes.
Zoellick and Benn, backed by African officials, have fine-tuned the draft plan and spent two days trying to win support ahead of the latest deadline of midnight Thursday.
But senior AU mediator Sam Ibok was not optimistic, saying: “We are still talking but it is a real trouble.
The closed-door African leaders’ meeting started late as some of the participants, including host Obasanjo, were also attending an African Union summit on AIDS here.
Asked upon his arrival at the meeting the chances of its success, the AU’s Salim said “it could work, or it might not, we’ll have to see”.
There was some hope from Ahmed Hussein, a negotiator of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), who said after meeting Benn and Zoellick that it had received “some amendments” on security, power-sharing and compensation.”
“We have always remained very positive about the peace agreement, we just wanted the world to acknowledge our demands,” he said.
“So now we are going to review the amendments and we should formulate an opinion, hopefully tonight.”
(ST)