Darfur mediator briefs Qatar on Arusha consultations
September 4, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – Darfur joint peace mediator Mohamed Ibn Chambas briefed Qatari officials about the outcome of a consultations meeting held with the holdout rebel groups in western Sudan last August.
Chambas met in Doha with deputy prime minister Ahmed bin Abdullah Al-Mahmoud on Tuesday to inform him about the conclusions of a meeting he organised in Arusha, northern Tanzania, from 22 to 27 August with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudan Liberation Movement of Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM).
Qatar, which sponsors the Doha process to end the 10-year conflict, host the talks since 2009 when the African Union and the Arab League agreed conjugate their efforts for peace in the Sudanese region and accepted the Qatari offer to facilitate the process.
After two years of talks involving JEM and Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), the latter signed a peace agreement with Khartoum after adhering to the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD), a framework text endorsed by Darfur stakeholders, LJM and Sudanese government.
At the time, JEM refused the DDPD but proposed to consider it as basis for further talks.
During Arusha meeting, the rebels said they want a comprehensive process including another rebel group, SPLM-N which fights in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, and opposition parties. They said negotiations should also focus on the reestablishment of a democratic regime after 24 years of rule by the president Omer Al-Bashir and his Islamist National Congress Party (NCP).
The mediator and the two rebel groups agreed to meet with 60 days.
It is not clear if the rebel SLM led by Abdel Wahid Nur would join them in this second encounter. The group refused to take part in the first meeting as it insisted that all members of the rebel coalition Sudanese Revolutionary Front should be invited.
Khartoum refused the outcome of the consultations, adding it gave the new mediator an opportunity to understand the positions of non-signatory groups.
The holistic process is supported by certain Western countries, however the African Union and the UN Security Council reiterated last month their support to the two separate processes for Darfur and the Two Areas.
The while the rebels want that this holistic process includes a transitional period ending the NCP rule, the other approach propose to sign peace agreements first and to hold a constitutional conference after.
(ST)