African Union unsure if Darfur rebels will ink peace deal

May 31, 2006 (ADDIS ABABA) — African foreign ministers met Wednesday hours ahead of a deadline for holdout Sudanese rebels to sign an agreement meant to end the Darfur crisis.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji, chairing a meeting of African Union’s Peace and Security Council, was cautious, saying he hoped the holdouts would join the deal before the midnight GMT deadline.

“I hope they will consider signing the agreement,” Adeniji said. “We will have to wait and see how the response is later today.”

A splinter faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement have resisted international pressure to join the May 5 peace deal intended to help end fighting that has resulted in at least 180,000 deaths and forced more than 2 million from their in the vast, arid region since 2003. The government and another faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement signed the deal, but that has done little to quell violence.

Representatives of Darfur rebel factions were in the Ethiopian capital Wednesday, “but I’m not sure anything will happen before the end of the day,” the African Union Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit told The Associated Press.

Darfur has been torn by violence since rebel groups made up of ethnic Africans rose up against the Arab-led Khartoum government in 2003. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab militias known as the Janjaweed who have been accused of some of the war’s worst atrocities. Khartoum denies backing the Janjaweed but agreed under the May 5 accord to rein them in.

Ensuring the Janjaweed respect the cease-fire agreed to as part of the peace treaty is key to persuading Darfur rebels to comply with the peace deal, but there have been several Janjaweed attacks since May 5, U.N. officials said.

The African Union’s 7,200 peacekeepers in Darfur have largely been ineffective in stopping atrocities and re-establishing security, leaving tens of thousands of people in camps, with little food or water. The Sudanese government had said the peace deal opened the way to a U.N. force for Darfur, but has moved only with reluctance to help the U.N. prepare. It was likely to be months before U.N. peacekeepers were on the ground.

(ST/AP)