Darfur rebels say peace talks delayed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-21 11:00

A new round of peace talks for Sudan's troubled Darfur region will be delayed by two days because top rebel delegates have been unable to get to Nigeria for the negotiations, a rebel leader said.

The African Union, which decided on Wednesday to boost its military force in Darfur, is sponsoring the talks between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups which had been due to start on Thursday.

But a leader of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebels told Reuters the AU had failed to provide transport for many SLA delegates, which would delay the meeting in Abuja.

"The opening of the talks was meant to be (on Thursday) but now it will be on Saturday, because the AU until now has not managed to get our delegation to Abuja," Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur said by telephone from Kenya on Wednesday.

The head of the delegation from the other rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, was in Abuja, and the Khartoum government's team was expected in the Nigerian capital early on Thursday.

A previous round of talks collapsed last month without agreement on peace in Darfur, where violence has driven 1.5 million people from their homes in what the United Nations has called one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

The African Union's Peace and Security Council agreed on Wednesday to expand its force in the western Sudanese region, starting the deployment of more than 3,000 additional troops within the next two weeks.

The soldiers, who will join 150 ceasefire monitors and 300 AU troops already in Darfur, were essential to restoring security and creating confidence for people to return to their villages, according to Said Djinnit, the head of the AU council.

The force's main job would be to monitor a shaky ceasefire agreed in April but which Khartoum and the rebels have accused each other of violating.

"The situation in Darfur remains grave," Djinnit said in Addis Ababa. "The continued violations of the ceasefire, the attacks and other acts of violence against the civilian population have the potential to undermine the ongoing efforts to restore peace and stability to the region."

Djinnit's council will meet international donors on Thursday to assess pledges made so far to fund the mission, which the AU estimates will cost $220 million over one year.

An African Union official said there had been consultations between rebels and the Khartoum government to resolve the issues which led to the collapse of the last round of talks.

But analysts said both sides had an interest in dragging out the peace process and the Abuja discussions, whenever they began, were unlikely to reach a deal to resolve the crisis in Darfur, a region the size of France.

"The political will is just not there," John Prendergast, Africa programme director at the International Crisis Group think tank, told Reuters by telephone from New York.

He said the Darfur rebels were content to wait and see what concessions southern guerrillas would gain from the government in a deal expected to end a separate, two-decade-old conflict in the south of Sudan, Africa's largest country.

The government, heavily criticised over the Darfur crisis, aims to limit international condemnation by showing its willingness to negotiate with the western rebels and is trying to draw out the talks for as long as possible, Prendergast said.

After years of skirmishes between Arab nomads and mostly non-Arab farmers over scarce resources in arid Darfur, rebels took up arms early last year, accusing Khartoum of using mounted Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.

The Sudanese government admits arming some militias to fight the rebels, but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws.

The United Nations estimates that 70,000 people have died from malnutrition and disease in the last seven months alone.

There are no reliable estimates of how many have been killed in the violence, which the United States has called genocide.

A U.N. official in Khartoum said on Wednesday the international organisation had received reports of heavy bombardment in north Darfur.

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