Sudanese govt, rebels welcome new AU security proposals

LAGOS, Nov 2, 2004 (IRIN) — Sudanese government officials and rebel delegates have welcomed – some cautiously – proposals from African Union (AU) mediators on security in Darfur, which has long been a sticking point between the two sides at peace talks in the Nigerian capital.

Rwandan troops patrol near an African Union camp outside Kabkabiya in North Darfu, November 2, 2004. Some 3,000 A.U. soldiers are being deployed into Darfur’s conflict zone to improve security in Africa’s largest country.

“It does seem to be quite a reasonably fair document,” Abdel Rahim Kalil, Sudan’s ambassador to Nigeria, told reporters in Abuja on Tuesday. He said the government delegation would hold consultations before giving a formal response to a draft agreement that includes the proposals.

Mahgoub Hussain, the spokesman for the main Darfur rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), was more emphatic. “It meets all important the things we’ve been asking for and we’ll sign this protocol,” Hussain told
journalists.

Under the AU draft agreement, both sides would have to give the location of their forces and Khartoum would have to make good on its pledges to the international community to disarm the Janjawid militia, accused of waging a campaign of slaugher, rape and destruction against people in Darfur. The
draft document does not require the rebels to disarm.

AFP, quoting an independent observer at the talks, said the proposal also included a “ban on undertaking hostile military flights to and in the Darfur region”. The rebels have said that government planes have still been bombing villages in the western Sudan region, which is the size of France.

Failure to agree on a security protocol at the first round of peace talks in Abuja in September scuppered the signing of a humanitarian deal, which would have paved the way for a massive aid intervention.

On Tuesday the UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS) told IRIN that some international relief agencies were scaling down their operations or pulling out altogether because of increased insecurity and rising tensions in the region.

And Reuters news agency reported that the Sudanese army had surrounded camps of people displaced by the fighting in Nyala, southern Darfur, impeding access for international aid workers.

The UN estimates that 70,000 people have died from malnutrition and diseases since March and that fighting has forced more than 1.5 million people from their homes since the conflict broke out at the beginning of 2003.

Both sides are under pressure from the international community to progress along the path to peace, but government officials and rebels continue to
accuse each other of violating the ceasefire.

On Monday the SLA and the smaller Justice and Equity Movement (JEM) had threatened to quit the talks, alleging that government forces had continued launching attacks against their positions despite an existing ceasefire agreement.