Chad to resume mediation in Darfur conflict
NDJAMENA, April 16 (AFP) — Chad said that President Idriss Deby had agreed to resume efforts to mediate in the conflict in neighboring Sudan’s western Darfur region, following talks with a Sudanese envoy.
A presidential statement said Deby had several hours of talks late Friday with Sudan’s Investment Minister Sherif Ahmat Umar Badur, who gave assurances that Khartoum had begun to remove armed men massed along the border.
The statement said that in the interests of preserving good relations between Sudan and Chad, Deby had agreed to resume his mediation role, while insisting that the Sudanese government withdraw their whole force.
“If the Sudanese government is concerned about preserving friendly relations between our two countries it must quickly remove the armed elements on its territory arrayed against Chad,” presidential communications director Abderaman Kulamalah had said Monday.
“Until these measures are taken, there is no question of Chad continuing its mediation” of the conflict in Darfur.
Authorities in Ndjamena had accused Sudan of seeking to destabilize Chad by supporting a 3,000-strong armed force near their border.
After Sudan initially sought to downplay Chad’s decision, Saturday’s Chadian statement said Badur had strongly asked Ndjamena to reverse it, stressing that Deby’s government was playing a key role in resolving the conflict.
Even as Ndjamena’s decision was announced, Sudanese state radio reported that Chad’s consul general in west Sudan had been attacked by armed men as he was travelling to Darfur from Chad.
The diplomat came under fire Thursday between the border town of Adre and Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State, and was taken to hospital for treatment before returning to Chad, Omdurman radio said, quoting a foreign ministry statement.
The Sudanese government expressed its sorrow over the incident and pledged to bring the culprits to justice.
“The incident serves only the agenda of those who are not happy to see the bilateral ties between the two sisterly countries grow and prosper,” it said.
The African Union has been trying to mediate an end to more than two years of conflict between Khartoum and ethnic minority rebels in Darfur, which has left some 300,000 people dead and 2.4 million displaced.
The partly political and partly ethnic conflict in Darfur pits two rebel groups from the local population of black African origin against an Arab mounted local militia, the Janjaweed, widely accused of major human rights violations.
Chad played an important role in getting the Sudanese government and the two main rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), last year to sign a truce.
It continued to help narrow differences between the warring parties despite repeated violations by them of the Ndjamena ceasefire agreement.
Ndjamena was also instrumental in getting the rebels to agree to attend African Union-sponsored peace negotiations with the government in Abuja, Nigeria.
The displaced people have fled to refugee camps, either internally in Darfur or across the border in Chad.