Libya slams rebels over internationalization of Darfur crisis
April 28, 2007(SIRTE, Libya) — Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi on Saturday accused rebels in Sudan’s war-ravaged western region of Darfur of seeking to internationalize the conflict. Also he urged the international community to stay out of Darfur crisis.
“There are rebel groups in Darfur which are trying to involve the world in this issue,” he said at an international conference on Darfur held in Sirte, 500 kilometres (310 miles) east of the Libyan capital.
“It is not in the interests of the international community to intervene in an affair in which one of the parties does not want a solution,” the Libyan leader said.
He also said there were “other issues more grave than Darfur” and regretted they did not attract similar attention, without naming them.
PEACE TALKS NOT PEACEKEEPING
But the United Nations envoy to Sudan, Jan Eliasson, said the Darfur problem was “not just dangerous for Sudan, but also for the region and the whole world, the AFP reported.
“This conference could be a chance to accelerate a solution to this problem and reinforce peace in the region,” he said, according to an official translation in Arabic of his remarks.
Also a Western diplomat told Reuters on the eve of the meeting that the talks in Libya would leave aside the peacekeeping issue and focus on seeking a political settlement.
Amid a welter of initiatives on Darfur including from Libya and Eritrea, he said all parties needed to agree to consolidate diplomatic efforts under the aegis of the AU and U.N.
“Peacekeeping is not under discussion here. This is to try and bring to life the revival of the political track,” the diplomat said. “What we need is a process vigorously led by the AU and the U.N.”
Political progress has been made much harder by the fact that the Darfur rebels themselves are split. A peace deal in May last year was signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions.
WITHOUT REBEL PARTICIPATION
Earlier Libya’s deputy foreign minister said the conference was taking place without the participation of rebel groups.
“This important conference is being held in the absence of the Sudanese opposition, for whom another conference will be held soon in Tripoli,” Ali Abdelsalam Triki told reporters.
He did not specify when the second meeting would be held but said its delegates would discuss the results of Saturday’s gathering in Sirte.
US President George W. Bush’s special envoy for Darfur, Andrew Natsios, was in Sirte, as were the British foreign office’s official in charge of Sudan Christopher Prentice and Henri de Coignac from France’s foreign ministry.
The foreign ministers of Chad, Egypt and Sudan — Ahmat Allami, Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Lam Akol respectively — were also attending, as well as the African Union special representative for Sudan, Salim Ahmed Salim.
Sudan has agreed to a U.N. “heavy support package” for the AU troops that includes some 3,500 U.N. military and police personnel, but it has not accepted the full U.N.-AU force of more than 20,000 which the U.N. Security Council first authorised last August.
Britain and the United States have been drawing up a sanctions resolution if Sudan continues to balk at U.N. demands, although no date has been set for its introduction in the Security Council. Among the measures under consideration are an arms embargo for the entire country.
The Libyan talks, scheduled to end on Sunday, bring together special Darfur envoys from the United Nations, African Union, United States, European Union and Britain, and ministers or officials from Sudan, Eritrea, Chad, Egypt, France, Canada, Norway and Russia.
(Agencies)