UN hopes all Darfur rebel groups will attend talks eventually

October 24, 2007 (GENEVA) — The U.N.’s humanitarian chief said on Wednesday he hoped that upcoming peace talks on the Sudanese war-ravaged region of Darfur will eventually bring together all the rebel movements, even though some of them now refuse to participate in the meeting.

The talks between the Sudanese government and rebel groups, which will open on Oct. 27, are challenged by the proliferation of rebel movements which appear to have different demands, said John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

“It’s hard to get them all back together, united at least in terms of what their demands are,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“We know that some people will not be there,” Holmes said, referring to Abdul Wahid Elnur, a key Darfur rebel chief who has refused to attend the talks, to be held in the Libyan city of Sirte.

Some other small rebel factions have also indicated that they will not participate in the meeting, he added.

But “we hope that once the talks start, others may join in later,” said Holmes. “It’s not a once-for-all offer. It is possible to join later if the process starts to make progress.”

Sudan on Monday said it will announce a cease-fire with the rebels at the start of talks.

Past cease-fires in Darfur have been regularly violated and it is doubtful that all rebel groups will sign on to a truce.

More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in February 2003, accusing it of decades of discrimination. Sudan’s government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed — a charge officials deny.

The government signed a peace agreement with one rebel group in May 2006, but other rebels refused — and many of those groups have since split, complicating prospects for a political settlement.

“The fragmentation (of rebel movements) makes the peace process very difficult because … it’s hard to know what is motivating them and what split them,” Holmes said.

Another rebel leader, Khalil Ibrahim of the Justice and Equality Movement is also threatening to boycott the talks unless the U.N. and African Union can persuade the rival Sudan Liberation Army to unite its splinter factions for the negotiations.

The peace talks come “at a particularly difficult and delicate moment in Darfur,” said Holmes. Renewed fighting has uprooted thousands of people in recent weeks and difficult discussions are taking place about the composition and deployment of a joint U.N.-AU peacekeeping force.

The U.N. and the African Union are pressing to deploy the 26,000-strong force meant to replace a beleaguered 7,000-member AU force that has been unable to stop the bloodshed in Darfur.

But the United States said it was not satisfied with Sudan’s cooperation in making land available for the new troops and with its failure to approve the composition of the AU-U.N. hybrid force.

Violence between government troops and clashes between different rebel groups have driven between 300,000 and 400,000 people from their homes in Darfur this year alone, Homes said.

Fighting and gunpoint attacks on aid workers make the humanitarian work difficult and dangerous, he added. “This is a turbulent period we expected.”

(AP)