Sudanese peace talks get underway with debate on refugee crisis
ABUJA, Oct 22 (AFP) — Sudanese government envoys sat down with rebels from the war torn province of Darfur on Friday as African Union peace talks got underway with a day of informal discussion on the region’s humanitarian crisis.
AU mediators hope to persuade the parties to sign up to a “humanitarian protocol” which would guarantee the safety of the 1.5 million civilians driven from their homes in the conflict, before seeking a political settlement.
The parties, who arrived in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Thursday, are to hold three days of seminars and workshops before relaunching a formal peace conference on Monday, more than a month after a first round of talks collapsed.
Sudan’s chief negotiator, Agriculture Minister Majzoub al-Khalifa, said: “We came here with a lot of hope and expect that this will be the final round of talks on Darfur.”
“We have finished with the humanitarian protocol, we are expecting now to sign it,” he said
“We hope this will be done because it will send a very good message to the people of Darfur and to all organisations that have been following these talks,” he added.
The Sudanese government has come under intense international pressure from to rein in its proxy militia, the Janjaweed, which stands accused of killing around 70,000 people during Darfur’s 20-month-old civil conflict.
The United Nations Security Council has threatened to impose sanctions on Khartoum’s oil industry if the African Union peace initiative fails.
African leaders are determined to prove that the continent can resolve its own crises. They have begun deploying a 3,320-strong AU truce-monitoring force and thrown their weight behind the Abuja talks.
“There will be informal talks between the parties today as indicated by the AU special envoy. This is necessary to enable us reach a consensus,” said Ahmed Tugod, leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
“The signing of the protocol on humanitarian matter will be decided during the informal talks,” he added. The JEM has been joined in Abuja by delegates from its ally, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM).
Fighting erupted in Darfur when the rebels launched an armed insurrection in protest at what they see as the political and economic marginalisation of the region’s black African people by the Arab-led government in Khartoum.
The government responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, a proxy force of mounted Arab gunmen, who have been accused of carrying out massacres among the black African tribes suspected of backing the rebels.
The United Nations has described the suffering of Darfur’s civilians as the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster” and the United States has accused Khartoum of sponsoring a genocide.
The African Union summoned the warring parties to peace talks in Abuja on August 23 only to see them break down one month later after the two sides failed to agree on the scope of the negotiations.