Chad to host peace talks between Sudanese government and western rebels
By ABAKAR SALEH Associated Press Writer
N’DJAMENA, Chad, March 23, 2004 (AP) — The Sudanese government and western rebels have agreed to hold peace talks in neighboring Chad, an adviser to Chad’s president said.
The talks are slated to begin Friday in N’Djamena and will be the first negotiations that involve the government and the Sudanese Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, which boycotted talks late last year, Ahmat Allam-mi, an adviser to Chadian President Idriss Deby, said Monday.
The United States, United Nations and international aid groups have said fighting over the last year in western Sudan has created a humanitarian catastrophe. Aid agencies, which have had only limited access to the region, estimate that more than 800,000 civilians have been displaced by the fighting. More than 110,000 of those forced from their homes have fled to Chad.
Last Friday, the U.N. resident coordinator for Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, said that attacks against civilians in Darfur by government-backed Arab militia were “close to the definition of ethnic cleansing.”
Most of those displaced by the fighting have been Muslims of African descent, the region’s traditional inhabitants, and the rebels have accused the government of carrying out a scorched-earth policy in the impoverished region.
The government has denied the allegations.
Allam-mi said Deby will mediate the talks and that international observers, including representatives from the African Union, have agreed to sit in on the negotiations.
Sudanese and rebel officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
The last round of peace talks between the government and the Sudan Liberation Movement began in N’Djamena on Dec. 15, but fell apart after one day over what Chadian mediators characterized as unacceptable rebel demands.
The rebels reportedly wanted a semi-autonomous government set up for Darfur. They also demanded that the Sudanese government to give the Iraq-sized region 17 percent of the country’s oil revenue.
Sudan began exporting oil in 1999 and is currently producing an estimated 250, 000 barrels per day.
The insurgency in Darfur began in February 2003 and has intensified as peace talks between the government and southern rebels fighting a 21-year-long civil war have inched toward their conclusion. Those talks are being held in Kenya.
But the talks do not include the Darfur rebels, who say they are fighting for a share power and wealth in Africa’s largest country – the same as the southern insurgents.