Sudan vows open mind in Darfur talks — but no magic wand in sight

KHARTOUM, Aug 20 (AFP) — Sudan has pledged an open mind going into peace talks with rebels from the war-ravaged western Darfur region and is apparently seeking to use accords it signed with southern fighters as a model to settle the conflict.

The stakes are high for both the rebels, who say they are seeking a better economic and political deal for Darfur, and Khartoum, which has come under huge international pressure to halt atrocities against the people of the impoverished region.

The immediate future of more than a million people forced from their homes by the conflict and now scattered across the region or living in camps across the border in Chad where disease and hunger are spreading also hangs in the balance.

“Our concern is to find a quick peaceful solution to all the unresolved questions,” a government official told AFP ahead of the talks slated to open under the aegis of the African Union (AU) in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Monday.

The official, who asked not to be named, said the government was going into the talks, called by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current AU chairman and which mark a last chance for African diplomacy before the United Nations intervenes, with an “open spirit.”

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

The government will likely try to resolve conflict in much the same way it reached an agreement with southern rebels to end a civil war which raged across the south for more than two decades and claimed at least 1.5 million lives, the official said.

Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in May agreed to end the fighting through a sharing of power and control of the oil-rich region’s wealth and granting the south a six-year transitional period before a referendum on possible cession.

However, the chances this round of Darfur peace talks will find a magic formula to end the 18-month conflict, which the United Nations says has killed between 30,000 and 50,000 and has branded the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, appear to be slim.

The government has already said it will not accept any “pre-conditions” on the part of the Darfur rebels and have questioned whether their negotiators will have either the clout or the mandate to sign a deal.

The region’s two main rebel groups, the Movement for Justice and Equality and the Sudan Liberation Movement, last month walked out of negotiations organised by the AU in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

They said Khartoum had not lived up to its pledge to disarm the pro-government Janjaweed militia, accused of attacking, slaughtering and raping members of tribes thought to be sympathetic to the rebels, before the start of negotiations.

Khartoum, on the other hand, wants the estimated between 6,000 and 10,000 rebels to be restricted to certain areas, which it argues will facilitate the disarmament process.

Both sides also continue to accuse the other of atrocities and violations of a ceasefire signed in April at talks in Ndjamena, although the government has insisted in the face of pressure from Washington and several UN and non-government agencies that it is applying a United Nations security plan for the region to the letter.

Under an agreement signed with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in July, Sudan undertook to end attacks on civilians in Darfur, disarm the Janjaweed, restore order and security to the region and ensure that international aid gets through to the refugee camps in the area.

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

The African Union is still also working to persuade Khartoum to accept a 2,000-strong African peacekeeping force to oversee security there.