Six African leaders to attend Sudan’s Darfur summit in Cairo

ABUJA, Feb 4, 2005 (IRIN) — Six African heads of state will meet in the Egyptian capital Cairo on 17 January to try and break the deadlock in peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebels in the western Darfur region, Nigerian officials said on Thursday.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo announced at last week’s African Union (AU) summit in Abuja that talks between Khartoum and the two main rebel movements in Darfur would resume in Abuja in mid-February.

It appeared on Friday that the Cairo summit would likely precede a resumption of the AU-sponsored peace talks in the Nigerian capital, but this was not made clear.

The peace talks have taken place intermittently in Abuja since August and Obasanjo, as chairman of the AU, has personally played a leading role as a mediator.

However, the talks have made little progress and the latest round ended in stalemate in December.

Obasanjo’s official spokeswoman, Remi Oyo, said the Cairo summit would be hosted by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The other heads of state present would be Obasanjo, Muammar Gadaffi of Libya, Omar Bongo of Gabon, Idris Deby of Chad and Omar Hassan Al Bashir of Sudan.

All are members of the AU advisory committee on Darfur, she noted.

However, diplomats said they doubted whether both the main rebel movements in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) would all be represented at the summit.

“Since the talks [fell apart] in December the parties have grown even further apart, and even more effort is required to bring them together again,” one western diplomat told IRIN.

He noted that while the SLA appeared willing to resume talks with Khartoum, the JEM was questioning the AU’s continued role as a mediator, accusing its officials of a pro-Khartoum bias.

The United Nations has described the Darfur situation as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It estimates that 2.3 million people in the region are reliant on aid to survive – more than a third of Darfur’s total population.

The United Nations reckons that up to 1.85 million people have been displaced from their homes, of whom 200,000 have fled into Chad. Tens of thousands of villagers have been killed or have died of famine and disease since the conflict began two years ago.

Rebels in Darfur took up arms against the government in February 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglect and oppression.

The Sudanese government tried to put down the rebellion with the help of an Arab militia force, known as the Janjawid. The United States and others have charged Arab-dominated government of carrying out acts of genocide of against black villagers in Darfur.

However, a recent UN report on atrocities in Darfur concluded that while horrific war crimes had taken place, which merited referal to the International Court of Justice, they did not amount to genocide.