Obasanjo prods parties to sign humanitarian protocol on Darfur

ABUJA, Nigeria, Sep 14, 2004 (PANA) — After a meeting Tuesday with stakeholders
at the Darfur talks afoot here, host President and AU chairman Olusegun Obasanjo urged the belligerents to sign the protocol on
humanitarian issues before a possible adjournment of the
negotiations.

While the Sudanese government has agreed in principle to sign the
agreement, which was reached in the second week of the talks, the
rebels said they would need to consult before deciding whether to
sign or not.

Rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM) had said they would not sign the
agreement on the humanitarian issues until security issues were
sorted out, insisting that both aspects were linked.

The rebels also expressed serious concerns about certain areas of
the draft security protocol, thus creating a logjam that forced
the adjournment of the talks last Friday.

Obasanjo called Tuesday’s meeting in an attempt to break a
seeming deadlock over the issue of security, the second item on
the four-point agenda for the negotiations, which opened in the
Nigerian capital last 23 August.

With both sides still sticking to their guns, President Obasanjo
wanted at least a signed document on discussions carried out so
far, before the parties break for consultations within their
camps.

Fighting between government and rebel forces in Darfur in the
past 19 months has killed 50,000 people and displaced more than a
million more.