Chad-Sudan pact seen crucial for peace in Darfur
March 14, 2008 (DAKAR) — Chadian rebels on Friday dismissed the latest peace pact between Chad and Sudan, a deal that Khartoum and Paris said must succeed if there was any chance of finding a political solution in Darfur.
Sudanese President Omer Hassan al-Bashir and his Chadian counterpart Idriss Deby signed the non-aggression deal in Senegal late on Thursday in an effort to end cross-border rebel attacks on their respective territories.
But the Chadian National Alliance, part of a rebel coalition that attacked the capital N’Djamena last month, besieging Deby in his presidential palace for two days, dismissed the Dakar deal and vowed to pursue their campaign against him.
“It doesn’t concern us. If Deby doesn’t want dialogue, then we’re going to chase him out by force,” Alliance spokesman Ali Gadaye told Reuters.
“We’re in our own national territory and we have a clear objective: to liberate our people who are being held hostage by a family clan (Deby),” he said, speaking via a satellite phone.
The deal, witnessed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and representatives of the European Union and the African Union, aims to revive a string of agreements that have failed to end unrest on the border, which marks the western fringe of Darfur.
“There cannot be, in effect, sustainable stability, or a political solution to Darfur, without a normalisation of relations between Khartoum and N’Djamena,” Frederic Desagneaux, deputy spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, told a news conference in Paris.
Under the pact, drafted by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, Deby and Bashir pledged to ban the activities of all armed groups and to prevent the use of their respective territories to destabilize their neighbors.
“A MIRACLE”
Wade, who had brokered the deal on the sidelines of a summit of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Dakar, called it “a miracle.”
“I had a small part in it but I think a divine hand helped us,” the Senegalese leader, who has sought to mediate in several African conflicts, said after the end of the summit on Friday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban welcomed the agreement and urged Chad and Sudan “to remain steadfast in their resolve to restore peace and stability along their shared border, as this would contribute to wider stability in the region.”
Foreign diplomats say Chadian rebels have regularly used the Darfur frontier region as a base from which to launch incursions into Chad. Sudan has in turn repeatedly accused Chad’s government of backing Darfuri rebel groups.
“The fact … is how can the two countries work together to settle the problem of Darfur, because the problem of Darfur is the root cause of the deterioration between Chad and Sudan,” Sudanese presidential adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail said.
“The tribe which leads the rebellion in Darfur is the same tribe that is now governing Chad,” he told Reuters. Chadian President Deby is from the Zaghawa tribal clan that lives on both sides of the frontier.
The barren border regions of eastern Chad already are home to half a million displaced, including Chadians uprooted by fighting and refugees from Darfur, where political and ethnic violence has killed some 200,000 people since 2003.
Instability on both sides of the border has hurt international aid efforts to. It has also spilled into Central African Republic, worsening a domestic insurgency there.
A European Union security force (EUFOR) began deploying to eastern Chad last month to protect displaced civilians in the former French colony. Humanitarian workers say security is key if they are to continue operating in and around Darfur.
The Dakar agreement includes the formation of a “contact group” of African foreign ministers who will meet monthly.
(Reuters)