Political talks to end western Sudan conflict to begin next week

ABIDJAN, April 14, 2004 (IRIN) — Political negotiations to end the rebellion in Sudan’s western Darfur region will begin in the Chadian capital N’djamena next week, Ahmad Allami, the spokesman of the Chadian mediation team, said on Wednesday.

Allami told IRIN by telephone from N’djamena that talks about a political settlement to the 14-month-old conflict would begin on 20 April.

Last week the Sudanese government and the two rebel movements in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) agreed to 45-day ceasefire at their first round of talks in N’djamena.

The truce is designed to allow relief agencies rapid access to more than 700,000 people in Darfur affected by the fighting. A further 110,000 have fled as refugees into eastern Chad.

Allami said the ceasefire, which took effect on Sunday, was holding well, despite US allegations that it had already been violated by Sudanese government forces and their Arab militia allies.

“No formal complaint has been lodged,” Allammi said. However, he admitted that the mediation team had been told of a “skirmish” that took place on Monday during which two people were slightly wounded.

Allami said the US allegations could refer to the period between last Thursday, when the ceasefire was agreed, and Sunday when it actually took effect.

The ceasefire was agreed at a first round of talks in N’djamena between the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebels which focused exclusively on humanitarian issues.

Human Rights Watch issued a statement on Wednesday welcoming the ceasefire, but expressing concern that no mechanism had been established to monitor its implementation.

Jemera Rone, the Sudan researcher of the New York-based advocacy group, said: “The absence of a monitoring component is a striking defect given that the looming humanitarian crisis is the result of gross human rights violations committed by the government and its Arab Janjaweed militias.”

Human Rights Watch also expressed concern that the government might manipulate the ceasefire “so that displaced people are forced to stay in government-sponsored camps and be prevented from returning home to farm their lands.”

In broad terms the conflict pits African blacks in Darfur against lighter skinned Arab residents of the semi-arid region.

Human Rights Watch said: “Some reports indicate that rival ethnic groups of Arab extraction are settling the villages and lands from which African residents were violently evicted.”