Chinese special envoy visits Sudan’s Darfur – Xinhua
April 7, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Special Envoy of the Chinese Government Zhai Juan visited on Saturday the western Sudanese region of Darfur to get acquainted with the situation there.
In Fashir, the capital city of the North Darfur state, the Chinese envoy visited Abu Shok, the biggest camp for the internally-displaced persons (IDPs) in the state, where administrative officials stressed that life of some 50,000 IDPs in the camp were “stable and natural”.
They said that the Sudanese government provided one half of the foods needed by the IDPs while international organizations provided the other half, adding that most of the IDPs wanted to return to their homelands only after the realization of a comprehensive peace in the region.
Osman Mohammed Yousef Kibir, the governor of the North Darfur state, told the Chinese delegation that the current Darfur crisis was only “one link of a chain” because this kind of conflicts had repeatedly taken place in the past.
He attributed the crisis to struggle for natural resources, land and powers, as well as some other problems, including poverty, low education, high jobless rates and open borders with neighboring countries, which also helped to deepen the crisis.
However, the government described the situation in Darfur as “stable and quiet”, stressing that no major conflicts had been registered in the recent three years.
The Chinese delegation also visited Nyala, South Darfur, where they inspected a health center and a primary school in al-Sarif Camp which houses some 14,000 IDPs.
Al-Haj Ata Al-Manan Idris, the governor of the South Darfur which has the biggest population among the three states in Darfur, noted that the general situation in his state was stable and improving due to the efforts exerted by the Sudanese government and the African Union which has deployed more than 7,000peacekeepers in the region.
He said that no conflict had been witnessed in his state between the government forces and the rebel movements since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) between the Sudanese government and a main rebel faction in the Nigerian capital Abujain May last year.
The governor, however, noted that sporadic fighting has occurred in recent period between the rebel faction which had signed the DPA and non-signatories of the peace agreement and also between various tribes.
Reiterating the Sudanese government’s position of refusing the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces in the region, Idris warned that if the government agrees on the deployment, it would lead to a disaster in the region because some tribes would take arms not only against the UN forces but also against the government.
He said that the only way to solve the crisis was dialogue, calling on the international society to push the rebel movements which have refused to sign the DPA to join the peace process.
The governor also urged the world community to provide assistances for the post-war rehabilitation in the region, saying that the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council on Darfur were not helpful for solving the problem.
Zhai Juan and his Chinese delegation, which arrived in Sudan on Friday for a four-day official visit, said they will hold more talks with Sudanese officials in Khartoum on Sunday.
(Xinhua)