Sudanese peace talks marred by dispute over rebel demobilisation

ABUJA, Aug 25 (AFP) — African Union talks on the crisis in Darfur teetered on the brink of deadlock after rebel leaders refused to discuss demobilising their forces ahead of a comprehensive political settlement.

The two rebel groups eventually sat down with Sudanese government envoys and AU mediators two-and-a-half hours late on Wednesday, and the talks broke up again barely an hour later after a brief dicussion of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

But rebel leaders said that they had agreed to shelve their objection to the inclusion on the African Union’s proposed agenda for the talks of the “cantonment” of their armed forces until later in the proceedings.

The talks are due to restart at 10:00 am (0900 GMT) Thursday.

“For the sake of the mediators and the facilitators we are keen to continue negotiation, for the sake of the security of our people,” said Haroun Abdulhameed, foreign commissioner for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

On his way into the conference, Abdel-Wahid Mohamed Ahmed el-Nur, leader of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) had told reporters: “The article on talks on cantonment of our military is completely forbidden.”

The rebels furiously insist that they will not disarm before reaching a comprehensive political settlement with Khartoum and before the notorious government-backed Janjaweed Arab militia is completely disarmed.

But Khartoum’s representative at the talks, Agriculture Minister Majzoub al-Khalifa, said that the rebels must be demobilised simultaneously with the Janjaweed and that before talks on the Darfur region’s future.

The Janjaweed — the proxy Arab militia used by Khartoum to crush a rebellion by black Africans that broke out in February 2003 — have been accused of conducting a scorched earth policy and ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

Al-Khalifa conceded, however, that African Union peacekeepers may have to be deployed to oversee any rebel disarmament. Previously Khartoum had said that African troops would only be used to protect AU ceasefire monitors.

“They may need more forces besides the protection of the monitors to protect the cantonment of the rebels, and we agree about that,” al-Khalifa said.

“When we start the disarmament of the Janjaweed — and we have started that — there must be a cantonment of the rebels under the protection of the AU force, if we need the AU force,” he said.

But the minister insisted that the AU had accepted that the Sudanese government had sole responsibility for the protection of civilians in Darfur.

International human rights groups and some foreign governments have called for a neutral force to protect refugees and humanitarian aid, but Sudanese officials insist this is not on the agenda.

The UN estimates that between 30,000 and 50,000 people have died as a result of the conflict in Darfur. Some 1.2 million others have been displaced from their homes and a further 180,000 forced to flee into neighboring Chad, the vast majority of them members of black African minorities attacked by the pro-government Arab militia.

The SLM and the JEM are calling for Sudan’s regions and ethnic minorities to be given a better share of political power and its economic spoils.

The African Union has spearheaded international attempts to find a negotiated settlement to the crisis and, along with AU chairman President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, has won praise for bringing the parties to Abuja.

On Tuesday the UN security Council hailed the African peace initiative, but has still not dropped its threat to impose sanctions if the government fails to disarm the Janjaweed militia and protect the displaced by the end of the month.

There is no official date for the talks here to end — officials expect them to go on for several more days — but there is an implicit deadline in the looming UN security council ultimatum.