International mediators battled on Wednesday to save the African Union’s make-or-break bid to end Darfur’s bloody civil war after peace talks between the Khartoum government and rebels ran into another quagmire.
United States envoy Robert Zoellick and British International Development Minister Hilary Benn joined AU officials in seeking a new compromise after rebel leaders from the devastated western Sudanese region refused to sign a peace deal.
For their part, the Khartoum government insisted that they were happy with the draft accord and said they would oppose further concessions on power- and wealth-sharing designed to get the insurgents on board.
”We have clearly said that we cannot renegotiate the agreement, but if the parties can agree on modifications, we’ll take them into consideration,” said the spokesperson for the AU talks team, Nourredine Mezni.
”The ongoing consultations are aimed at bringing the positions together. If the parties agree on changes, we have no problem. It’s in that spirit that Benn and Zoellick are working, they think there are changes to be made,” he added.
Mezni said the Sudanese government had approved its own copy of the peace agreement and sent it back to mediators, but it had not been formally signed.
Khartoum confirmed that for its part it had already accepted the peace deal and argued therefore that no more horse-trading was possible.
”There is no way for further negotiations. The deal is closed on our part. We have already signed the agreement last night. Now there is no more pressure on us after we have signed,” said government spokesperson Abdulrahman Zuma.
Sudan’s negotiator at the talks, Majzoub Al Khalifa, told Agence France-Presse: ”Indeed, we signed the document [last] night. It is now left for the movements to use the period of extension to make up their mind and sign the agreement.”
But a spokesperson for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Ahmed Hussain, said: ”The extension of 48 hours gives us some hope that we can still get some concessions on our demands from the Sudanese government and the AU.”
”We hope more pressure will be mounted on these people,” he added.
Last week the AU unveiled a proposed peace agreement which would see the creation of a semi-autonomous Darfur transitional authority and bring rebel fighters into government security forces and the Khartoum administration.
Sensing a chance to bring an end to a war which has triggered what United Nations aid agencies dub ”the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”, senior US, British, European, Canadian and Libyan officials came to Abuja to push for a deal.
Nevertheless, two deadlines for agreement have now expired, increasing the pressure on both the rebels and the government and building momentum towards possible action by the UN Security Council, which has endorsed the AU talks.
In a statement, Salim’s team ”urged the parties, especially the [rebel] movements … to adopt and sign the agreement without any further delay.”
Meanwhile, the host of the talks, Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, was due to welcome AU chairperson Denis Sassou-Nguessou and AU Commission president Alpha Oumar Konare to Abuja to seek their support in pushing for a deal.
The rebel Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the JEM reject the draft agreement’s provisions on the disarmament of the pro-government Janjaweed militia, compensation for civilians and power-sharing.
They are also seeking a role for the international community in implementing the peace agreement.
Darfur, an arid rural area of western Sudan the size of France, erupted into civil war in early 2003 when the SLA and JEM rebelled against the Khartoum government to push demands for more regional autonomy.
The Janjaweed launched a brutal counter-attack and the conflict has since cost between 180 000 and 300 000 lives and driven more than 2,4-million people from their homes. — AFP
