UK aide warns Darfur rebels of “high price” for boycotting Libya talks

UK aide warns Darfur rebels of “high price” for boycotting Libya talks
777 words
27 October 2007
06:27 pm GMT
BBC Monitoring Middle East
English
(c) 2007 The British Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved. No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of The British Broadcasting Corporation.
Excerpt from report by London-based newspaper Al-Hayat website on 26 October

[Report by Camille al-Tawil in London: “Mallock-Brown Warns Darfur Rebels of ‘High Price’ for Their Boycott of Sirte Negotiations”]
Cairo, Al-Hayat: Britain warned Darfur’s rebels yesterday of the consequences of their boycott of the peace negotiations with the government which are due to start this weekend in the Libyan city of Sirte under the UN and African Union [AU] auspices. Lord Mark Mallock-Brown, the minister in charge of Africa at the British Foreign Office, acknowledged that some rebels would be taking part in the negotiations but the extent of their representation of the Darfur people remains unknown.

The British stand came one day after the Security Council [UNSC] called on the parties to the conflict in Darfur to cease fire and participate in the peace negotiations in Sirte “in a constructive way” and threatened to impose sanctions on those refusing to participate. Michael O’Neill, Britain’s special representative in Sudan left for Sirte yesterday. Andrew Natsios, President Geoerge Bush’s special envoy in Sudan, is expected to represent the US administration. The UN and AU mediators Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim will oversee the negotiations. But the rebels cast shadows on doubt on the talks’ futility when six factions announced they would be boycotting them following meetings held by the rebels’ leaders in Juba, south Sudan. The issue became more complicated the night before yesterday when the “Justice and Equality” movement, which is boycotting the Sirte meetings too, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Canadian and an Iraqi in an attack on an oil installation in Kordofan, east of Darfur, and called on the Chinese company operating the installation to leave Sudan. [Passage omitted on Egyptian President Mubarak’s call to all parties to attend the Sirte talks]

In London and speaking at a meeting with a small group of correspondents, Lord Mallock-Brown condemned the attack in Kordofan and expressed “deep annoyance” with the “Justice and Equality’s” claim of responsibility, calling it an “unhelpful factor” in achieving peace. He added: “The time has now come for the Sudanese Government and the rebels to demonstrate their commitment to peace and reconciliation and to start constructive and good negotiations.” Commenting on the announcement by a large number of rebel factions’ leaders that they would not sit at the negotiating table, he said: “Their presence is very important.” He then urged the rebels’ leaders “to show that they are statesmen and are committed (to achieve peace) to their people, leave their comfortable exiles, move to Libya, pull up their sleeves, and talk (to the government).”

The British official went on to say: “Frankly, I believe the issue now is not whether all the rebels’ leaders will boycott the Sirte meetings but whether there will be just a partial representation of the rebels.

Therefore the important thing is to ensure that those (rebels) going to Libya have enough representation of the Darfur people. Some of them will go and some will not. But UN and AU envoys Eliasson and Salim are the ones who will decide whether those coming have enough representation to participate in serious negotiations. What concerns us however is that all the rebels’ leaders should understand that the negotiations are going to start on Sunday and that there is a high price to be paid by anyone who does not come in terms of the future of his representation of his people. The peace process will start. They will determine whether to join or boycott it according to the decision they will take at the end of this week and the next weeks.”

Regarding the rebels’ demand for more time to unite their stands before the start of the Sirte negotiations, he said: “Many of us believe that they (the rebels) have been given very long time before the start of the negotiations. They have had enough time to determine their stands and resolve the issue of their representation.”

Regarding the refusal of Abd-al-Wahid Muhammad al-Nur, leader of the “Sudan Liberation Front” who is residing in France, to participate in Libya’s negotiations, Mallock-Brown said: “We believe he should board a plane and go to Libya. He seems to be firm in his intention to boycott. But I do not see any moral or political justification for his stand.”
[Passage omitted citing Reuters and AFP on UNSC’s call to all factions to attend the Sirte talks]
Source: Al-Hayat website, London, in Arabic 26 Oct 07