Darfur peace talks likely to adjourn for more preparations
October 28, 2007 (SIRTE, Libya) — The United Nations’ chief mediator said Sunday that Darfur peace negotiations in Libya would most likely be postponed to allow for more time for the war-torn region’s splintered rebels to regroup and reach a common position for the conference.
Jan Eliasson, the chief U.N. envoy for a joint U.N and African Union mediation team, would not say when the talks, which opened Saturday, would adjourn but stressed the step was necessary to allow for full-fledged negotiations between the rebels and the Sudanese government.
“Only after that period … of approximately three weeks, will we go into substantial negotiations,” Eliasson told The Associated Press.
No major Darfur rebel chief was present in the Libyan coastal town of Sirte for the opening of the talks Saturday, dashing hopes a quick peace agreement could be reached to end over four years of fighting with the Sudanese government.
Eliasson said more chiefs were expected to arrive in Sirte to prepare for the negotiations. Other rebel leaders want to hold their own preparatory meetings in Darfur.
“I don’t think we should dramatize whether these preparations take place here or somewhere else,” Eliasson said in Sirte, stating the U.N. and AU would however “prefer to have them here.”
Liu Guijin, the special envoy from China, which has considerable leverage on Sudan’s government, also said the likely suspension of the peace conference within a few days would allow for more constructive peace talks later.
“The adjournment is not a sign of failure. It’s a preparation of other steps,” Liu told the AP.
But the Sudanese government negotiator warned that Khartoum would have no patience for absent rebel leaders. Nafie Ali Nafie said the handful of low-level rebels attending “really represent the movements on the ground in Darfur.” He agreed that the conference should be adjourned but only to allow “those who came here” to have more time to reach an agreement.
“To adjourn negotiations for those who didn’t come is a wrong signal. … It’s unacceptable,” Nafie told reporters. He said it encouraged rebel leaders to complicate talks.
The rebels’ main leaders say the groups now present in Sirte are government stooges with no troops in Darfur and geared at weakening their position.
As the first working session of talks opened later Sunday, a delegate read a common message from the few rebel groups present.
“We need additional time, we need more time…to prepare the negotiations,” said Tajadine Bechir Niam, a delegate from a splinter faction of the Justice and Equality Movement rebels.
Ahmed Diraige, another rebel delegate, said “it would be normal and logical to postpone until everybody is here.” He, too, said key rebel chiefs could still be coming to the talks.
Sudan’s government delegation announced Saturday a unilateral cease-fire, and Niam said Sunday the rebels present were “willing to look into a cessation of hostilities in consultation with our missing brethren.” Diraige said the government has breached numerous cease-fires in the past and asked for U.N. and AU guarantees it would stick to its word this time.
U.N. officials were awaiting Sunday a notification from the rebels’ absent leadership that it would abide by the cease-fire.
Niam called on the boycotting rebel leaders to join preparatory meetings so that a lasting peace could be achieved, warning otherwise against a repeat of the previous peace deal that signed in May 2006 to little avail.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been chased from their homes in Darfur since ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government in 2003, accusing it of decades of discrimination.
The U.N. says Darfur is the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made ending the conflict a top priority. A joint force of 26,000 U.N. and AU peacekeepers are due to deploy in January to takeover from an African force that has been unable to end the spiraling violence.
But mediators and envoys to the talks warned that the absence of a widely supported peace agreement could greatly hinder the peacekeepers’ mission and even deter some contributing nations from sending troops.
Eliasson would not specify when the peace conference would adjourn, or when it would resume. “We are pretty reluctant to set exact timelines,” he said, stating he could not predict either when a full peace agreement could be reached.
A final deal would only depend on the “political will” of Sudan’s government and rebels, and was beyond the mediators’ control, he said.
(AP)