Darfur peace talks set to resume in Nigeria despite delayed delegates
By DANIEL BALINT-KURTI, Associated Press Writer
ABUJA, Nigeria, Oct 21, 2004 (AP) — Sudanese government and rebel representatives were due to restart peace talks Thursday in the Nigerian capital on the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, officials said. But one rebel group said the talks would be delayed.
Nigerian Foreign Ministry official Florentina Ukonga said the talks, brokered by the African Union, would start as scheduled Thursday afternoon even though several high-ranking delegates had not arrived by midmorning.
“Not all the delegates are here, but we have enough on the ground to start the talks,” Ukonga said, denying rumors the discussions would be held up until next week.
However, a spokesman for the one of the rebels groups, the Sudan Liberation Army, said the talks would be delayed because its delegates were unable to travel to the venue. Adam Ali Shogar, speaking Thursday morning in N’Djamena, Chad, said the African Union had failed to fly his group’s delegation to Abuja.
African Union spokesman Boubou Niang said some delegates had missed their flights to Abuja but would arrive in time for the opening of the talks Thursday.
At least 70,000 people have died and 1.5 million forced from their homes in the Darfur crisis, which began in February 2003 when two rebel groups took up arms over what they regarded as unjust treatment by the government and ethnic Arab countrymen.
The two non-Arab Darfur rebel groups are the Sudan Liberation Army and the smaller, Islamist-oriented Justice and Equality Movement.
Major bloodshed ensued when pro-government militias called Janjaweed reacted by unleashing attacks on Darfur villages.
Even before Thursday’s talks started, Ahmed Tugod Lissan of the Justice and Equality Movement cast doubt on their prospects for success.
Lissan said his group would only sign an agreement on allowing aid agencies access to displaced people in Sudan if a separate accord was also reached on wider security issues. Fighting has continued in Darfur in recent days, according to the United Nations.
The rebels’ insistence that no humanitarian accord could be signed without a security agreement led to the breakup of the last round of talks in Abuja, which lasted for several weeks in August and September.
“We don’t want to sign the humanitarian protocol unless we sign the protocol on security issues,” Lissan told The Associated Press. “But it seems that the government doesn’t want to discuss the issues.”
Sudan’s ambassador to Nigeria, Abdel Rahim Kalil, said he hoped talks would do better than last time around.
“We hope that we will be able to resume and finalize the remaining issues,” he said, waiting at the airport for the Sudanese government delegation to arrive.
He said a humanitarian accord was “ready” but that there were “a few issues remaining” before an agreement could be reached on security issues.
On Wednesday, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council agreed to increase its peacekeeping force in Darfur from 390 to 3,320 troops and civilian police in an effort to end the violence.
Said Djinnit, a senior African Union official said the enhanced force should be in the region by early next month.
The force will include 450 unarmed military observers, a major increase from the 80 currently deployed there to monitor a shaky cease-fire between two rebel groups fighting government troops and allied militia.
The observers have been protected by an armed security force of 310 troops. That force will be increased to 2,341. The new mission will also include 815 civilian police officers and 164 civilian staff, Djinnit said.
The $220 million (A?175 million), one-year operation will be funded mainly by the European Union and the United States, Djinnit said.
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Associated Press writer Abakar Saleh in N’Djamena, Chad contributed to this report.