Darfur warring parties to meet in Nigeria for peace talks

LAGOS, Aug 20 (AFP) — Sudan’s government and its foes in the Darfur region’s rebel movements will meet on Monday for peace talks which mark a last chance for African diplomacy to solve the crisis before the United Nations steps in.

The UN Security Council has given Khartoum until the end of the month to restore peace and security to the war-torn western region of Darfur, or face the prospect of as yet unspecified political or economic sanctions.

Meanwhile, the African Union is working to try to bring Darfur’s warring parties to the negotiating table and to persuade Khartoum to accept a 2,000-strong African peacekeeping force to oversee security there.

Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current AU chairman, has invited the government and rebels to send delegations to the Nigerian capital Abuja on Monday to build on the momentum of the continent’s own peace process.

An African Union delegation, led by AU commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare, and including experts from the AU Peace and Security Council, will leave Addis Ababa on Sunday to fly to Nigeria for the conference.

Both the government and the main rebel groups have said they will attend Monday’s summit but, as both continue to accuse the other of atrocities and ceasefire violations, a peace deal seems a far off prospect.

Sudan insists it is doing all it can to restore peace and disarm the militias which have been ravaging Darfur for the last 18 months, and it is not clear if President Omar Hassan al-Beshir will allow the AU force to deploy.

Khartoum’s Interior Minister Ahmed Mohammed Haroun was quoted by the Sudanese press on Thursday saying his government had established 11 “safe zones” to protect one million internal refugees at risk from the fighting.

“The state has applied its security plan 100 percent… North Darfur is totally secure,” Haroun was quoted as telling reporters in the North Darfur State capital El-Fasher.

Such guarantees are unlikely to impress those in the international community, led by the United States and several UN and non-government agencies, who allege that the government armed and sponsored the worst of the militias.

The Janjaweed militia has been accused of attacking, slaughtering and raping members of tribes thought to be sympathetic to Darfur’s rebel groups, who are seeking a better economic and political deal for the region.

The United Nations estimates that between 30,000 and 50,000 have been killed and more than one million displaced since the conflict started.

Disease and hunger are spreading in camps in Darfur and neighbouring Chad. UN agencies have branded the mess the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”, and American lawmakers have accused Sudanese officials of genocide.

With international anger mounting, Africa is desperate to prove that it can resolve this problem on its own. Nigeria has warned Khartoum that if it does not cooperate it will not be protected from the consequences.

“What has to be made clear is that if Sudan will not yield to gentle and African pressure it will have to succumb to extra-African pressure that might not be so gentle,” Obasanjo’s spokeswoman, Oluremi Oyo, said last week.

So far, Sudan has agreed to allow the African Union to send 150 Rwandan soldiers and 150 Nigerians to protect a smaller number of AU ceasefire monitors. Khartoum insists its own forces can handle broader security.

But with international watchdogs such as Human Rights Watch alleging that Janjaweed killers are being recruited into mainstream government forces rather than disarmed, the international community would prefer a larger outside force.

Sudan’s Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail has, however, said that his government might agree to expand the AU presence on the ground “if the African Union convinces us of the importance of a peacekeeping force.”