Sudan’s Beshir in Libya to rally Darfur rebels to peace deal

Feb 20, 2007 (TRIPOLI) — Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir arrived in Libya for talks he said were aimed at engaging holdout rebel groups from Darfur, where four years of violence continues to rage unabated.

The talks are aimed at “launching negotiations with groups that did not sign the Abuja agreement,” Beshir was quoted as saying by the official SUNA news agency upon arrival in the Libyan capital.

He was expected to meet Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki and representatives from the many rebel groups operating in the war-torn western Sudanese region.

The meeting “represents a new step in the dialogue between the government and the armed movements and should pave the way for talks to take place later in Asmara,” SUNA quoted presidential adviser Abdallah Ali Massar as saying.

Beshir travelled with a high-level delegation including Foreign Minister Alam Akol, top aides Majzub al-Khalifa and Nafie Ali Nafie, Presidential Affairs Minister Hassan Saleh and Investment Minister Malek Akar.

He flew to Tripoli in response to an invitation by Kadhafi to start negotiations with all rebel factions.

“Beshir has earlier declared willingness to negotiate with the armed movements,” a source at the presidential palace in Khartoum told AFP on Monday.

Sudanese officials, however, would not confirm the presence in Tripoli of Darfur rebel leaders representing groups that refused to endorse the peace agreement signed in Abuja in May 2006.

The deal was reached under huge international pressure between the Sudanese government and one faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) in Darfur but other key rebel groups refused to sign.

Since then, the rebel front has been increasingly fragmented into smaller groups formed along tribal lines, and the conflict has started to spill over into neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic.

The agreement failed to curb violence in Darfur, where deadly clashes continue to occur on a daily basis and from which many aid groups have threatened to withdraw.

The SUNA agency had reported that United Nations and African Union envoys Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim were also due to join the talks in Tripoli.

But spokesmen for both organisations contacted in Khartoum denied the envoys had been invited to the talks and said Eliasson and Salim were not in Libya on Tuesday.

The two envoys had held intensive talks last week in Khartoum and Darfur with non-signatory rebel commanders.

According to UN figures, at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced since the fighting, pitting rebel groups against government forces supported by militias, erupted four years ago.

Some sources say the death toll is much higher.

(AFP)