AU drafts new plans to end Sudan talks impasse
By Tume Ahemba
ABUJA, Sept 7 (Reuters) – African Union mediators are drafting fresh security proposals in an effort to end an impasse in peace talks between Sudan’s government and rebels from the western Darfur region, officials said on Tuesday.
The government and the rebels remain far apart on key security issues, including disarming warring factions, despite two weeks of AU-brokered talks designed to resolve what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe.
The Darfur rebels are demanding power and wealth sharing measures that echo those sought by other rebels in the south of the oil-producing state where there is a truce as talks go on to end 21 years of conflict — Africa’s longest-running civil war.
“We are still working on the amended draft on security … we will send it to both parties to look at,” said Assane Ba, the AU’s spokesman at the talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
AU officials said the talks were likely to resume on Wednesday.
The rebels said they would probably need time overnight to consider the new proposals — the second time the AU has amended its blueprint in the last few days — before returning to the negotiating table.
CONTROL
Analysts say the impasse is the result of weak diplomatic pressure on the rebels and government fears that rebel demands for greater autonomy in the south and the west may eventually threaten the existence of Sudan.
“These talks are not about who controls Darfur, but about who controls Khartoum,” Tom Cargill, Africa programme coordinator at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said by telephone from London.
The United Nations says more than a million people in the vast arid Darfur region have fled their homes in the past 19 months for fear of attack by Arab militias, known as Janjaweed. The U.N. estimates about 50,000 people have been killed.
The rebels began their uprising in February 2003 after years of low-level fighting between mainly African farmers and Arab nomads over scarce resources.
The U.N. has threatened Khartoum with unspecified sanctions if it does not rein in the militias, and the United States said last week it was preparing a new U.N. resolution on Darfur.
“There doesn’t seem to be any of the pressure on (the rebels) as there is on Sudan,” said Cargill.
The rebels say they will not sign a security agreement until a political deal has been sealed and that they will not garrison their fighters until the Janjaweed militias are disarmed.
The government, which denies supporting the Janjaweed, says it will not carry out disarmament until the rebels move into containment areas.
The AU has called for the implementation of a ceasefire but both the government and the rebels have accused each other of truce violations.
The rebels back AU proposals to increase the union’s 300 troops protecting ceasefire monitors in Darfur but the government has so far rejected such a move.
(Additional reporting by Dino Mahtani in Lagos)