African Union says Nur’s SLM faction may join Darfur deal
May 11, 2006 (COPENHAGEN) — African Union Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said Thursday that a Darfur rebel faction is reconsidering its rejection of a peace agreement signed by the government and the main insurgency group.
“We have been approached by the movement of Abdel Wahid, who has shown interest in being part” of the Darfur peace agreement, Konare told The Associated Press in the Danish capital where he is attending a conference on Africa.
“This is an opening,” Konare said, adding that details were sketchy but that talks between the Sudanese rebel leader and the AU were ongoing. “There are contacts going on.”
“If new parties want to join, maybe they need more guarantees,” Konare said. He did not elaborate what those guarantees — or possible Nur demands — could be.
“But if we have a united front … we should be able to give this guarantee,” Konare added.
Konare’s comments could signal a significant development in the Darfur peace drive.
Abdel Wahid Nur leads the larger rebel faction of the two that held out on signing the accord in Abuja, Nigeria, last week.
The deal between Sudanese authorities and Darfur’s main rebel group could help end fighting that has killed at least 180,000 people in three years and displaced more than 2 million.
Nur’s group is one of the two factions of the main Darfur rebel organization, the Sudan Liberation Movement; the other one is leaded by Minni Minnawi which signed the accord. Nur has fewer fighters on the ground but his base is the Fur, the largest tribe in Darfur.
After Nur rejected the agreement, one of his top negotiators, Abdulrahman Moussa, formed his own Front for Liberation and Renaissance and said he supported the agreement, apparently halving Nur’s camp in favor of the peace treaty.
Nur had argued the accord did not go far enough to guarantee disarmament of the Janjaweed, the Arab militia allegedly backed by the Sudanese government and accused of some of the war’s worst atrocities.
“There are no perfect solutions. A compromise with guarantees that can improve the solution, we must have it and that is the only way we can move forward,” Konare said.
Thursday’s conference in the Danish capital focused on Darfur, peacebuilding measures for Africa and the Scandinavian country’s aid to the impoverished continent.
Along with Konare, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, Mozambique’s Prime Minister Luisa Dias Diogo and Tanzania’s foreign minister, Asha-Rose Migiro, attended the gathering at the Danish Foreign Ministry, hosted by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
The United States and other world powers are pushing for a force under the command of the United Nations that is double the size of the AU force in Darfur, but Sudan’s government has yet to agree.
The AU’s 7,200 peacekeepers, now low on funds, have largely been ineffective in stopping atrocities and re-establishing security, leaving tens of thousands of people in camps, with little food or water.
Konare has backed calls for a U.N. peacekeeping force to be deployed quickly and expressed hope the United Nations would soon decide on whether to send Darfur peacekeepers.
(ST/Ap)