Sudanese government begins direct talks with western Sudan rebels

By ABAKAR SALEH, Associated Press Writer

DJAMENA, Chad, April 7, 2004 (AP) — Sudan began direct talks with rebels fighting a yearlong insurgency, as President Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the government Wednesday to give humanitarian aid agencies unrestricted access to western Sudan.

Sudanese government officials and members of two rebel groups met face-to-face late Tuesday for the first time since talks mediated by Chad and the African Union began March 31, officials said Wednesday.

“I make a solemn appeal to the two parties to cease hostilities for at least two weeks to allow negotiations to continue and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid” into western Sudan, Chadian President Idriss Deby told the negotiators.

Since rebels took up arms in February 2003, thousands of people have been killed and more than 800,000 others forced to flee their homes in Darfur, an impoverished western region that borders Chad.

The rebel groups – the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army – and refugees have accused the government of deliberately bombing and attacking civilians.

The government has denied the allegations.

The United States, United Nations and international aid groups have said the fighting has created a humanitarian catastrophe. Aid agencies have had only limited access to the region, and more than 110,000 Sudanese have fled into Chad.
On Wednesday, Bush said the Sudanese government must stop militias in the Darfur region from committing atrocities against the local population.

In a statement, Bush also called on the Khartoum government to provide unrestricted access to humanitarian aid agencies.

“The government of Sudan must not remain complicit in the brutalization of Darfur,” said Bush, who was in Crawford, Texas.

He condemned the atrocities, noting that hundreds of thousands of civilians in the region have been forced from their homes.

“I have expressed my views directly to President Bashir of Sudan,” he said.

Bush also stressed the need for a settlement in the longrunning negotiations to end the 20-year conflict between the government and southern-based Sudanese rebels.

He said the United States will move toward normal relations with the government of Sudan only when there is a just and comprehensive peace agreement with the insurgents.

U.N. officials and human rights groups have said Arab militia groups, reportedly with government backing, are engaged in “ethnic cleansing” against Africans in Darfur province.

“Such reports leave me with a deep sense of foreboding,” Annan said Wednesday during a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. “Whatever terms it uses to describe the situation, the international community cannot stand idle.”

Sudanese authorities, which deny the claims, have invited Annan to send a high-level mission to Darfur. So far, however, they have restricted access to the region for aid groups and journalists.

“It is vital that international humanitarian workers and human rights experts be given full access to the region, and to the victims, without further delay,” Annan said.

“If that is denied, the international community must be prepared to take swift and appropriate action. By ‘action’ in such situations I mean a continuum of steps, which may include military action. But the latter should always be seen as an extreme measure, to be used only in extreme cases.”

Reed Brody, special counsel for the pressure group Human Rights Watch, welcomed Annan’s remarks. “This was a bold speech,” he told The Associated Press.

“The best way to honor the dead in Rwanda and show that we have learned from our failures is to stop the massacres being carried out in Sudan. The secretary-general gave a clear warning today that if we don’t do that we will have again failed the victims.”

Chad hosted talks between the government and rebels last year, but they collapsed last December.