Sudan promises safety guarantees for proposed Darfur talks
KHARTOUM, Feb 10 (AFP) — Sudan’s government Tuesday said it would guarantee the safety of everyone taking part in a proposed conference to discuss peace and development in the rebellious Darfur region but said it would not attend other talks suggested for Geneva this month.
President Omar al-Beshir on Monday called for a conference inside Sudan and announced a general amnesty to rebels who handed themselves and their weapons in to the nearest police centre within a month.
On Tuesday, Justice authorities freed 15 Darfurians held in Khartoum’s Cooper Prison on suspicion of involvement in year-old rebellion in the region neighbouring Chad, the Sudan Media Centre (SMC) said.
It added that this was the start of a process in which the Justice Ministry would free all Darfur rebellion-related detainees in different prisons.
Information Minister and government spokesman Al-Zahawe Ibrahim Malik told a news conference in Khartoum: “The conference that was proposed by the president will be held inside Sudan with safety guarantees given to the participants.”
He said the Justice Ministry had begun making arrangements to guarantee this for those who carried arms in Darfur.
“We have announced the invitation to the conference and guarantees will be provided to everyone,” said the spokesman, adding that all political parties, including those of the opposition, would be invited.
Malik said the conference was not a substitute for one proposed by a Swiss non-governmental organisation and another European Darfur organisation to be held February 14 and 15 in Geneva “to which we will not go”.
He ridiculed as predictable a rebel denial of a statement by Beshir that government troops now controlled all zones of military operations in Darfur.
“We have been expecting this denial by the rebels nor have we expected them to acknowledge their defeat,” he said.
Some 3,000 people have been killed and another 670,000 displaced within Sudan itself by the war in Darfur, pitting government troops and their Arab militia allies against rebels drawn mainly from the area’s non-Arab minorities.
Another 100,000 Sudanese are estimated to have fled across the border into Chad because of the rebellion that erupted a year ago over the government’s alleged economic neglect of the Darfur region.