Both Sudanese rebel groups fighting in Darfur refused on Friday to sign a peace deal with the Khartoum government, their chief negotiators said, despite intense pressure from international mediators.
Mohammed Tugod of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said that the African Union draft peace accord failed to answer his group’s demands for Darfur’s three states to be united into a single autonomous region.
”We clearly explained the reasons why this document failed to take into consideration the opinions of the movement and why the African Union mediation failed also to come out with a reasonable document,” he said.
”We came to the conclusion that it’s extremely difficult for us to accept this kind of document unless fundamental changes have been made … therefore we decided not to sign it,” he told reporters in Abuja.
Abdelwahid Al-Nur, one of the leaders of Darfur’s other rebel movement the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), said: ”We need the document to be improved upon. We are not going to sign it.”
The rebels spoke in the early hours of Friday after intense negotiations between international mediators, African Union officials, the Sudanese regime and rebel groups continued past a midnight deadline for a deal to be signed.
AU spokesperson Nourredine Mezni said the talks would restart at 9am (8am GMT), but the JEM leader said the issue of regional government was non-negotiable.
Tugod said there was a ”neccessity to have the region, at this specific time, before the elections” and added that a peace deal should include a larger provision to bring leaders from Darfur into the Sudanese federal presidency.
As drawn up by the AU, the proposed peace plan would call for a referendum in Darfur to decide whether to create an administrative region some time after fighting has halted and national elections have been held.
Khartoum has signalled that it would sign the AU document, which was rejected by the rebels on Sunday but which has since been modified following the intervention of United States Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.
Tugod welcomed Zoellick’s changes, but said they did not go far enough and would not be enough to convince the JEM to sign. He called on AU chairperson President Denis Sassou-Nguesso to arrange further negotiations. – AFP
