Sudan's rebels boycott peace talks on Darfur as UN deadline looms

The six-day-old talks in Nigeria aimed at finding lasting peace in Sudan's troubled Darfur region suffered a setback again Saturday as the two rebel groups there vowed to withdraw from the meeting sponsored by the African Union (AU) for one day.

The rebel groups, namely the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said in a statement that they "decided to boycott the talks for 24 hours in protest over the continuous attacks that result in many civilian casualties (by government forces and Arab Janjaweed militia)."

The Sudanese government denied the accusation of killing 75 civilians in Darfur in the past three days, and the AU has ordered its ceasefire monitors in Darfur to investigate the alleged attacks and to report on its findings.

The boycott comes two days before a UN Security Council deadline for the Sudanese government to take measures to disarm the Janjaweed militia, which was accused of looting, raping and killing in Darfur but not represented at the ongoing meeting in Nigeria's capital Abuja, or face possible sanctions.

The UN deadline, worked out on July 30, was given to Khartoum to achieve tangible progress on solving Darfur crisis, not to settle the problem altogether as understood by some, UN envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk said earlier this month.

The Sudanese government insisted that the humanitarian situation has improved, while the rebel groups said that it has witnessed no improvements and government delegates to the peace talks are not serious.

The government delegation was "merely playing delay tactics," Adam Ali Shoga, spokesman for the JEM told reporters on the sideline of Saturday's talks, which broke up barely an hour after it resumed in Abuja.

He dismissed government claims of bringing 40,000 soldiers and 12,00 policemen to keep peace in Darfur and wondered what such a crowd would be doing in Sudan.

Shoga urged the African Union to put pressure on the government to implement the agreements reached at April negotiations to end the conflict, and also called for AU peacekeepers.

"The only troops that can protect the Darfur people are those from the AU and the international bodies. We urgently need them to save us from the government soldiers and the militias," he claimed.

The African Union has been considering raising its 300-strong contingent protecting ceasefire monitors to a full 2,000-strong peace mission. And Khartoum says that it accepts the deployment ofmore AU troops, but only to help cantonment of the rebel forces besides protection of the AU monitors, and that the country does not need AU peacekeepers to protect its civilians.

One the other hand, Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim, spokesman for the Sudanese government accused the rebel groups of attacking AU and UN observers and called for cooperation from all parties toward ending the conflict.

Moreover, he reiterated government's commitment to resolving the conflict, and expressed optimism that Sudan would avoid sanctions despite the looming Aug. 30 UN deadline.

The Abuja meeting, which opened Monday and halted for a one-dayrest Friday, is another effort by the AU to help bring about a political solution to the 18-month Darfur conflict, described by the United Nations as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, whichhas left some 10,000 people dead and one million others displaced.

On July 15, the African regional bloc brokered a political dialogue in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa between the Sudanese government and the two rebel groups, yet the talks collapsed due to differences on various issues.

Source: Xinhua