Sudanese can make peace without pressure: government

By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Nov 11, 2004 (AP) — The Sudanese government says agreements on security and refugees reached with Darfur rebels signaled to the world that Sudan can solve its own problems.

Sudanese policeman quarrels with Sudanese women at an Internally Displaced Persons camp in Sudan’s troubled Darfur, Friday May 28, 2004 (AFP).

Majzoub Khalifa, who headed the government delegation at peace talks in Nigeria, noted upon his return to Khartoum late Wednesday that the agreements had been reached about a week before the U.N. Security Council takes up Darfur and other issues at an extraordinary meeting in Kenya.

“We want to tell them (Security Council members) that the resolution of Sudanese questions is in the hands of the Sudanese people, upon their consent and on their own will, without any foreign imposition, ” Khalifa was quoted as saying Thursday by the state news agency.

“We want to send a message to our armed (rebel) brothers in Darfur that they are welcome back home in their own homeland and we as Sudanese, everybody, is committed to implement what has been agreed upon,” Khalifa said.

He added he believed the agreement reached in Abuja, Nigeria on the fighting in the western region of Darfur would boost peace talks being held in Naivasha, Kenya on an unrelated war in the south.

In Abuja, Sudan and the two main rebel groups signed accords promising aid organizations unfettered access to Darfur’s displaced and banning “hostile” military flights over the region. Delegates said they would address a political accord at talks expected in mid-December.

Twenty-one months of violence in Darfur have left tens of thousands dead and driven 1.8 million refugees from their homes, international officials say.

Sudan’s Arab-dominated government and tribal militia who support it are accused of launching coordinated attacks on non-Arab farmers after two rebel groups rose up in February 2003. Sudan denies targeting civilians or allying with the so-called Janjaweed militia.

While Darfur pits Muslims against Muslims, the southern conflict broke out in 1983 after the rebels from the mainly animist and Christian south took up arms against the predominantly Arab and Muslim north.