African Union tries to revive failed Darfur talks

ADDIS ABABA, July 20 (Reuters) – The African Union (AU) said it had made fresh contact with the government of Sudan and Darfur rebels in an effort to revive peace talks that broke down over the weekend.

Talks collapsed after rebels set six preconditions for dialogue, including the disarming of Janjaweed Arab militias and prosecution of those suspected of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur. The rebels walked out after the government rejected their demands.

“We will try and meet with them separately in an effort to revive the talks,” the African Union’s (AU) Darfur envoy Hamid Algabid told a news conference late on Monday night.

“We are now in contact with both the rebels and the government of Sudan. We have planned to meet both of them separately, probably by the end of this week.”

The government is facing increasing international pressure over the bloodshed, which the United Nations says has displaced more than one million people and killed as many as 30,000.

The rebels, and international human rights groups, accuse Khartoum of arming the Janjaweed to loot and burn African villages in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, and report mass killings and rapes. The government denies the charges.

Algabid steered last week’s failed effort to end the 18-month-old conflict and humanitarian crisis in the west of Africa’s biggest country.

He did not say where the further meetings would take place, but AU sources said they could be in Geneva. Algabid said mediators would meet the two sides separately.

The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups attended the talks mediated by the AU at its headquarters in the Ethiopian capital last week, but did not meet Sudan government delegates face-to-face.

The government team said it would talk about the rebel demands but rejected them as preconditions for those talks.

The JEM and SLA launched a revolt in February 2003 in the west of the oil-producing country after long conflict between African villagers and Arab nomads.