NIGERIA-SUDAN: Darfur talks suspended, both sides vow to stop fighting

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ABUJA, 21 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - African Union mediators said on Tuesday that faltering peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebels in the country’s western Darfur region had been suspended until January.

The move followed several days of stalemate in the latest round of peace negotiations in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

A statement issued by the mediators said the Sudanese government and rebels had agreed to halt all fighting before they returned to the negotiating table next month.

“The parties have recommitted themselves to the ceasefire. They’ve agreed the mechanism that already exists to monitor the ceasefire be strengthened,” AU spokesman Assane Ba told IRIN.

Peace talks have been taking place intermittently in Abuja since August against a background of continued skirmishing in defiance of a ceasefire agreed last April.

But during the latest 11-day session the parties to the conflict agreed on little more than the need to stop fighting. The rebels walked out of negotiations after only two days, alleging that government troops had launched a fresh offensive.

AU monitors in Darfur confirmed that fresh fighting was taking place, but efforts by the mediators to halt the clashes failed. On Saturday a helicopter used by the AU monitors to check ceasefire violations was hit by gunfire from unidentified attackers.

General Festus Okonkwo, the AU’s chief ceasefire monitor said in Abuja last Friday that vast quantities of weapons had poured into Darfur in recent weeks, turning the arid region into “a time bomb that could explode at any moment.”

"The quantity of arms and ammunition brought into Darfur to meet the present build-up of troops in the region is (so) astronomical that the issue is no longer whether there will be fighting or not, but when fighting will start,” the Nigerian general said.

At the latest round of peace talks in Abuja, none of the key issues concerning the sharing of power and wealth in Darfur were discussed.

Ba, the AU spokesman, said these would definitely be dealt with when the two sides met again, but in the meantime it was important to stop the fighting.

“Next time we meet we will go straight into the political issues,” he said.

No firm date has been set for the January meeting.

The two-year-old conflict in Darfur has sent an estimated 1.45 million people fleeing from their homes to makeshift shelters within the region and has pushed a further 200,000 over the border into eastern Chad as refugees.

The United Nations has described the Darfur situation as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. An estimated 2.3 million people in the region are reliant on aid to survive - more than a third of its total population.

The head of the Sudanese government delegation at the Abuja peace talks, Majzoub al Khalifa, said his government agreed that “all hostilities should stop.”

But spokesmen for the two main rebel movements in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said they would return fire if attacked.

“The movements didn’t launch any fight, it was the government that did that and undermined the environment of the talks,” said Abduljabbar Dosa of SLA. “As long as we’re not attacked, we will not shoot at anybody.”

The AU plans to deploy an international protection force of 3,000 men in Darfur to monitor the ceasefire and help protect civilians, but so far it has only managed to deploy 1,000 troops on the ground.

Among them are 196 Gambian troops who left Banjul aboard three German military transport planes on Monday.

The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003 when the rebels took up arms against the government, accusing Khartoum of neglect and oppression.

The Sudanese government tried to put down the rebellion with the help of an Arab militia force, known as the Janjawid. This has been widely accused of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against black villagers in Darfur.

The widely ignored ceasefire, agreed in April, was followed by further agreements in November that were designed to improve security and grant wider access to humanitarian organisations operating inside Darfur.

The AU subsequently drafted a declaration of principles, which was due to have been discussed at the session of peace talks just ended.

This included a recognition of the ethnic, cultural, religious and social diversity of Sudan, a pledge to uphold the unity and sovereignty of the country, and a recognition of the need for an equitable distribution of power and national wealth.

[ENDS]