Sudan peace talks inch towards compromise on protection of civilians

ABUJA, Sept 1 (AFP) — Sudanese government and rebel leaders inched closer to compromise here Wednesday on a proposed African Union agreement to protect the Darfur region’s 1.2 million displaced people from hunger, rape and murder.

After eight days of peace talks in the Nigerian capital, envoys from Sudan’s government and Darfur’s two rebel movements were still squabbling over the first point on their agenda: a deal to guarantee access to humanitarian teams.

When they returned to the table on Wednesday they were presented with a new version of a draft protocol drawn up by African Union officials, who are keen to demonstrate that the Abuja talks are making some kind of progress.

On Thursday the United Nations envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, will brief the Security Council on the crisis in Darfur and is expected to criticise the Khartoum government for failing to protect displaced civilians from attack.

The UN council gave Sudan a 30-day deadline on July 30 to disarm its proxy Arab militia, the Janjaweed, withdraw its regular forces from around the camps of the displaced and ensure free access to the area for aid agencies.

That ultimatum has now expired and some countries are likely to push the United Nations to impose diplomatic or economic sanctions on Sudan.

Against that background, African Union and Nigerian officials held separate talks with both parties before Wednesday’s session to apply gentle pressure on them to reach a deal on the humanitarian protocol.

“Those private meetings are expected to soften the minds of the two parties so that the peace talks could move ahead,” said one AU official.

The draft deals primarily with ensuring access to Darfur for aid workers and beefing up international monitoring of rights abuses. Both sides said that the document was a good basis for discussions but that changes were needed.

Mohammed Ahmed Tugod, leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, said that his side wanted a guarantee written into the deal that the government would allocate a specific proportion of Sudan’s oil revenue to pay for aid.

“The Sudanese government has a lot of money to pay but they do not want to pay the money and the only choice we have is to put this issue on the draft in order to support the people,” he told reporters.

“They are Sudanese and they are entitled to get the benefit from this oil.”

Khartoum’s forces and its Janjaweed militia stand accused of killing, raping and intimidating members of Darfur’s black African minorities, whom the government sees as sympathetic to the area’s two rebel groups.

The rebels argue that Sudan’s economic and political life has been dominated by a minority Arab elite since independence, and are demanding greater autonomy for Darfur and a power-sharing political settlement.

Abuja’s talks have been overshadowed and at one point — when rebels staged a 24-hour boycott — almost derailed by the repeated allegations of atrocities and kidnappings which have been thrown back and forth between the two sides.

The conference’s host, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, warned Khartoum not to undermine the peace process after AU ceasefire monitors uncovered evidence that the Janjaweed had attacked civilians on August 26.

But latterly the rebels have come under fire for allegedly kidnapping humanitarian and health workers working in Darfur.

On Wednesday a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme said that six Sudanese aid workers had been released after talks with the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), one of two rebel groups represented in Abuja.

“The three WFP staff members and three members of Sudanese Red Crescent were released by the SLM this morning,” Peter Smerdon told AFP in Nairobi.

The six humanitarian workers, and not eight as first feared, “were being held by the SLM and were released following negotiations,” he added.

Rebel delegates denied denied involvement both in this kidnapping and in a second alleged incident in which the government claimed that 22 of its own workers involved in a vaccination drive had been taken.