West Sudan rebels say will talk with Khartoum in ‘neutral’ country
LIBREVILLE, March 22 (AFP) — The main rebel group from Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region has said in a statement received by AFP Monday that it is prepared to hold talks with the Khartoum government in a “neutral” country if certain key conditions are met.
The Movement for Justice and Equality (MJE) set as preconditions for talks the disarmament of pro-Khartoum militias in Darfur — where the war that broke out in February last year has claimed some 10,000 lives, according to the UN — a ceasefire, the “immobilisation” of the Sudanese air force, and for an international inquiry to be launched into the war in Darfur.
If those conditions are met, “the MJE is prepared … to hold talks with the Khartoum government in any country except Sudan, if it is deemed neutral,” said the statement.
The MJE statement came after the announcement last week by Chad of a meeting in the Chadian capital Ndjamena between belligerents in Darfur’s year-long conflict.
It was unclear Monday if the rebels consider Chad to be neutral, but the MJE last month rejected an offer by Chad to mediate in the conflict, saying Njdamena was “involved in the Darfur region under a security pact with Sudan.
“We do not want Ndjamena, because the Chadian government gives the Sudanese air force access to its air space,” the rebels’ military spokesman, Colonel Abdallah Abdel-Kerim, told AFP.
Chad said last week that it will in the near future host a meeting between Khartoum and Darfur rebels.
Ndjamena has in the past intervened on several occasions in the conflict in Darfur, and been able to obtain two ceasefire agreements, both of which were violated. Fighting in Darfur was stepped up after a third round of talks on the region broke down in December last year.
Last week, Mukesh Kapila, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, told journalists that the Darfur conflict was “possibly the world’s hottest war” and was the “greatest humanitarian and human rights catastrophe” on the globe.
The war has killed over 10,000 people and affected more that a million others, according to Kapila.
Systematic rapes and other attacks on civilians, he said, were “tantamount to war crimes.” Kapila said such attacks had taken place on “a scale comparable to historical situations, including Rwanda” in 1994 where a genocide claimed up to a million lives.
Kapila said most of the atrocities were being carried out by militia groups fighting rebels who rose up against the Khartoum government in February last year. The rebels accuse Khartoum of marginalising their region.