Pressure seen as key to ending Sudan’s western war

By Matthew Green

TINE, Chad/Sudan border, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Thousands of refugees are fleeing across the border, government bombers are blasting civilians with shrapnel and marauders on horseback are chasing women and children into the bush.

Scenes long familiar from two decades of war in southern Sudan are now part of everyday life in the country’s west, where a conflict between government and rebels has escalated sharply.

For families escaping their villages to huddle on the sands of the frontier with neighbouring Chad, the solution to their misery seems simple: the government must cease attacking them in its campaign to stamp out insurgents in the Darfur region.

“I ask the government of Sudan to stop the planes from bombing,” said Abdallah Khadr, 54, who now lives with his wife and children under a tree in the Chadian wilderness.

“Countries like America should tell the Sudanese government to stop the war,” he said, as his sons looked on with faces turned pallid by dust blowing across the plain.

Khadr touched on what some observers consider to be the key to tackling the war in the west — putting pressure on the government in Khartoum to reign in its offensive and address political grievances in the area.

Such pressure, applied particularly by the United States, has played a major role in forcing the government and rebels in the south to join peace talks in Kenya, yielding major progress towards ending their entrenched conflict.

So far the United States has avoided publicly condemning government attacks in the west to avoid upsetting Khartoum at a crucial phase of negotiations with the southern rebels, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

“The feeling is that we’re in a sensitive moment and we don’t want to rock the boat in Khartoum,” said ICG special adviser John Prendergast. “It’s a massive miscalculation, one that could end up costing literally thousands of lives.”

“JANJAWEED”

Officials say President George W. Bush has made Sudan a top foreign policy priority, hoping peace will transform ties with a country Washington lists as a “state sponsor of terror”.

Darfur may be one of the remotest corners of Africa, but analysts say fighting there may complicate any peace deal forged to end the war in the south.

Western Sudan has long been prone to tensions between Arab nomads and African farmers over water and grazing, but the conflict has recently taken on a more military dimension.

Two rebel groups emerged a year ago, saying they wanted to fight for a “democratic” Sudan that would cease what they called a government policy of discriminating against Africans in the impoverished area in favour of Arabs.

Ceasefire talks hosted by Chad last month ended in failure, clearing the way for what rebels describe as a major government offensive to crush all resistance with bombers and attacks by Arab “Janjaweed” militia who ride camels and horses.

It is hard to independently verify claims by government or rebels in Darfur, but rights group Amnesty International says there is evidence that the government is backing such forces.

“We consider the government to be largely responsible for the dire humanitarian situation in Darfur by apparently arming militias who are attacking the civilian population,” said Amnesty Sudan researcher Elizabeth Hodgkin.

The government has blamed the exodus of refugees — more than 35,000 since December — on attacks by rebels.

U.S. officials hope parts of the deal being thrashed out with southern rebels may help find solutions for the west and have called for a ceasefire, but no new talks between government and the main western rebels have been announced.

Sudan’s interior minister has said the government was ready for negotiations. But mistrust of Khartoum appears high.

“They never show any seriousness towards the talks,” said rebel Sudan Liberation Army/ Movement spokesman Ahmed Abdelshafi Yagoub. “They are committed to attacking us.”