Darfur peace talks set for October 27 in Libya – govt, UN
September 6, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — U.N. chief ban Ki-moon and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced Thursday that new peace talks to end the 4 year conflict in Darfur will start Oct. 27 in Libya.
A joint communique issued by the two leaders after their second round of talks in Khartoum stressed the importance of reaching a political solution to the conflict that has left more than 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million uprooted from their homes.
Ban has pressed hard during his first trip to Sudan to get the splintered rebel groups back to the negotiating table. His joint announcement with al-Bashir signaled that a date and venue have been set – but the real test will be whether rebel movements who in the past refused to join the peace process attend the Libya talks.
The Sudanese government and only one major rebel group signed the May 2006 peace deal in Abuja, Nigeria, but the agreement has not held for the war-torn western Sudanese region. The continued violence has prompted the need for deploying U.N. peacekeepers.
Tripoli has in the past hosted several lower-level meetings to try to get the disparate rebel groups together but with no success. Ban, who is on a weeklong Africa tour, will fly to Libya Saturday, after a stop in Chad.
Darfur’s bloodletting began in 2003, when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Khartoum is accused of retaliating by unleashing janjaweed militias, blamed for the worst atrocities against civilians. The government denies the accusations.
Ban and al-Bashir’s joint note also expressed hope that the rebel groups will “cooperate fully…to ensure that the negotiations are concluded as expeditiously as possible.”
For its part, the Sudanese government pledged to “prepare for and participate constructively in renewed negotiations on Darfur,” to be held under U.N. and African Union mediation, it said.
In the note, made available to The Associated Press, Sudan also pledged to work with the U.N. and AU to “facilitate the timely deployment” of a new 26,000 strong joint AU-U.N. peacekeeping force for Darfur.
The U.N., in turn, pledged “to do its utmost…to deploy the hybrid operation in a timely fashion in support of peace consolidation in Darfur.”
At a press conference later Thursday, Ban and al-Bashir expressed concern at “continuing humanitarian suffering and insecurity in Darfur.”
(AP)