British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Tuesday sternly rebuked both sides fighting in the brutal civil war in Sudan’s war torn region of Darfur and demanded that peace talks be speeded up.
In an unusually frank speech reflecting the growing anger of the broader international community, Straw told delegates to Africa Union-sponsored peace talks in Abuja that they had failed to live up to their promises.
”There is no ceasefire in Darfur. The government of Sudan and the rebel movements have both repeatedly violated it. Attacks by all sides continue, including on humanitarian convoys and the AU mission,” Straw declared.
”This must stop … Indeed, the only people who can stop it are you, the representatives of the parties to the conflict,” he said, adding: ”Progress in the talks has been far too slow.”
War broke out in Darfur in February 2003 when rebel groups began fighting what they say is the political and economic marginalisation of the region’s black African ethnic groups by the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum.
The government responded by unleashing the Janjaweed militia, a force of mounted gunmen, which has been blamed for many atrocities in a conflict that has left as many as 300 000 people dead and more than two million homeless.
For almost two years, the two sides in the conflict have been meeting on and off in the Nigerian capital to discuss a broad political solution to the dispute, but fighting has raged on in Darfur. – AFP
