Mini-summit in Libya to seek progress on Sudan’s Darfur crisis
CAIRO, Oct 16 (AFP) — Sudan’s president, threatened with UN sanctions over the Darfur crisis, is due to meet Sunday in Libya with leaders of neighbouring powers to lay down the basis for direct talks with the rebels a few days later.
The mini-summit comes as the United Nations said the 20-month-old civil war in western Sudan has sparked the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, killing 70,000 people since March.
The one-day meeting in Tripoli will bring together Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and his counterparts Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Idriss Deby of Chad and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, who which currently holds the presidency of the African Union (AU).
It is expected to provide the framework for a resumption of talks between Khartoum and the main Darfur rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
Egyptian presidential spokesman Maged Abdul Fattah said earlier this month that one of the summit’s objectives would be to find a negotiated solution with the rebels within an AU framework and avoid “internationalisation” of the conflict.
There was no confirmation that Sunday’s meeting would be attended by the rebel groups.
They started a rebellion in February 2003 against marginalisation by the government and charge that Khartoum is using Arab tribesmen known as Janjaweed as proxy militias to crush their uprising.
Obasanjo, who hosted a first round of talks in Abuja in August and September, announced that a fresh round with the rebels would be switched to Tripoli, his office said.
“Talks on Darfur earlier slated for Abuja had to be switched to Tripoli to secure the attendance of neighbouring countries whose cooperation was crucial to lasting peace,” a statement said, without elaborating.
Although the text did not say when the talks were due to restart, an official in Obansanjo’s office told AFP they will resume in Tripoli on October 21.
No further details were available on Sunday’s summit, which was convened at the last minute. Beshir left Khartoum and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit left Cairo on Saturday as preliminary meetings were expected ahead of the late-afternoon summit.
The United Nations and Western leaders have accused Khartoum of not doing enough to prevent bloodshed in Darfur and alleviate the pressure on civilians.
The international community threatened Beshir with sanctions against Sudan’s vital oil industry if he failed to rein in the Janjaweed, blamed for many atrocities in the region, including rape, murder and the destruction of farming villages.
In the latest such warning, Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot — whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union — said last week that Sudan “should continue to feel the pressure from as many sides as possible.”
Sudan’s neighbours Chad and Libya are seen as having a role to play in bringing the conflict in Darfur to an end. Chad is hosting more than 200,000 out of the 1.4 million people displaced by the conflict, while Tripoli is seen as sympathetic to Khartoum.
The first round of AU-sponsored talks broke up after more than three weeks of inconclusive bickering between Khartoum’s delegates and the two rebel movements which have mounted an 20-month-old insurgency in Darfur.
The African Union has spearheaded international attempts to resolve the crisis and is in the process of deploying a 4,500-strong peacekeeping force from around five African countries to Sudan to oversee the peace process.