Darfur peace moves in disarray as rebels quit
By Tsegaye Tadesse
ADDIS ABABA, July 17 (Reuters) – Rebels from Sudan’s Darfur region walked out of African Union-mediated peace efforts on Saturday, saying they would return only when the government had met their six conditions for talks.
The move — which Khartoum said demonstrated the rebels’ lack of commitment to peace — deals a blow to efforts to end an 18-month-old conflict in the west of Africa’s biggest country that has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
“We’ll stay here overnight and then leave (for home),” Ahmed Tugod Lissan of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said after meeting African Union (AU) mediators in Addis Ababa.
“By refusing to accept our demands the government in Khartoum is saying that it is not prepared to discuss the disarmament of the Janjaweed who are conducting ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Africans in Sudan,” Lissan said.
He said he was speaking on behalf of JEM and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), two rebel groups who launched a revolt in February 2003 in the west of the oil-producing country after long conflict between African villagers and Arab nomads.
The government is facing worldwide protests over the bloodshed, which the United Nations says has displaced more than one million people. As many as 30,000 people have been killed.
Disarmament of the Janjaweed Arab militia is one of six conditions the JEM and SLA have set for participation in AU-mediated peace talks aimed at ending the bloodshed.
The other conditions are: provide access for an inquiry into genocide charges, prosecute criminals who committed genocide or ethnic cleansing, allow unimpeded humanitarian access, free prisoners of war and set a neutral venue for future talks.
PROTESTS
After the walkout the AU said its mediators would intensify consultations with the parties to determine how to advance political dialogue. An AU statement also urged the warring parties to implement a ceasefire signed in April.
Sudanese Minister of State for Foreign Relations Najeeb al-Kheir Abdul Wahab told reporters the walkout showed the rebels lack of commitment to the spirit of the ceasefire.
“We came to Addis Ababa with an open mind to discuss the crisis in Darfur and seek a peaceful solution, but we are deeply disappointed by the position of the two rebel groups who set preconditions for the talks,” he said.
Neither the SLA nor JEM met government delegates since the 53-nation AU launched the latest bid to restart Darfur’s peace process at its headquarters in Addis Ababa on Thursday.
The rebels accuse the government of arming Janjaweed Arab militias to loot and burn African villages in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Khartoum denies the charge.
AU officials who struggled for three days to convene a rebel-government meeting said their task had never looked very promising because Darfur’s top rebel leaders had chosen instead to attend a Sudanese opposition conference held in Eritrea.
JEM official Ahmed Hussain Adam confirmed that JEM leader Khalid Ibrahim was at a meeting in Asmara of Sudan’s opposition umbrella group the National Democratic Alliance.
The gathering was discussing how to strengthen links between all anti-Khartoum groups, he said. JEM was not a member of the alliance, he said, but added: “We all represent marginalised sectors of society and our demands are more or less the same.”