African mediators hopeful as Darfur talks enter second week

ABUJA, Oct 31 (AFP) — African mediators believe peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Darfur region’s two rebel groups will make progress as they enter a second week on Monday, delegates at the Abuja conference said.

Mohamed Tugod Lissan, head of the Sudanese Justice and Equity Movement (JEM) delegation to peace talks regarding the crisis in Darfur, speaks to journalists in Abuja, Nigeria, Thursday Oct. 28, 2004.

“We’re satisfied with the progress being made,” Doubou Niang, a political adviser to the African Union (AU) team which has come to the Nigerian capital to oversee a tense and often stormy dialogue, told AFP on Sunday.

Attempts to take steps towards starting talks on a political settlement to the 10-month-old conflict in Darfur were stymied all last week by wrangling over a security deal aimed at reinforcing an unstable ceasefire.

Niang said that after a separate security committee had discussed the issue on the sidelines of the main talks, the warring parties were now expected to come up with a statement acceptable to both sides by Tuesday at the latest.

But after a week of talks in which the sides swapped bitter accusations of ceasefire violations and attacks on civilians, it was clear that deep differences remained between both parties to the conflict.

On Sunday, Sudanese government spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim said that the government would never accept a rebel demand that an eventual political accord include measures to divorce Islamic religious law from Darfur’s government.

“Our brothers in the movements said they wanted a clear separation between politics and religion,” he said, warning that the government’s position — the need to apply Sharia law in northern Nigeria — was “non-negotiable”.

“The constitution allows freedom of religion. As individuals we’ve the right to practice the religion of our choice. But since Sharia is the law in the north, you have to abide by that law,” he said.

Both the rebels and the black African population in Darfur which they claim to represent are largely Muslim, but one of the insurgent groups — the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) – has demanded better protection for non-Muslims.

But Mohammed Tugod, a spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said that his group did not share the SLM’s position, and that he held out hope that remaining problems could be sorted out in the days to come.

The talks began just over two weeks ago and the AU mediators are hopeful of having some kind of agreement on three broad topics — the humanitarian, security and political crises — by the end of this week.

The JEM and the SLM launched an armed insurrection last year, alleging that the Arab-led regime in Khartoum had left their poverty-stricken and its black African population economically and politically marginalised.

The government’s response was to unleash the Janjaweed, a proxy militia of mounted Arab gunmen, who have been accused of UN and international observers of carrying out murderous attacks on black communities.

More than 1.5 million civilians are now reported to have been displaced and are living in camps; prey to hunger, disease and militia attacks. Tens of thousands have been killed in the violence and associated deprivation.

The African Union convened the Abuja talks in a bid to resolve the crisis within the continent, after the international community threatened to impose sanctions on the government through the UN Security Council.

The body has also begun to deploy a 3,250-strong truce-monitoring force to Darfur, made up of troops from around six African countries.