ABUJA, 27 April 2006 — The African Union mediators have presented the warring parties in Sudan’s devastated western region of Darfur with a draft peace agreement and urged to them to sign the deal before the end of the week. The proposed settlement was unveiled as the UN Security Council imposed a travel ban and economic sanctions on four Sudanese from both sides in the war accused of driving a conflict which has left some 300,000 people dead.
More sanctions may follow if the parties do not reach agreement ahead of an April 30 deadline imposed by African and UN diplomats. “Today is the day that gives me the singular honor of presenting to the parties the draft Darfur peace agreement, and I commend it to you for your serious consideration,” chief mediator Salim Ahmed Salim said late Tuesday. “This is decision time. No more procrastination, no more antics, no more delaying tactics. The eyes of the world are on you. The people of Darfur are looking up to you. Africa is encouraging you,” he told the delegates.
Pressure has been mounting from both AU and UN members for the two sides to accept a deal, but thus far neither the Khartoum government nor Darfur’s rebel movements have been ready to put pen to paper. Salim said his team hoped that the parties would be in a position to make a decision by today.
“This is a peace agreement that I can as chief mediator along with my colleagues in the mediation defend as just and honorable for all the parties,” Salim told the parties after two years of negotiation of talks in Abuja.
“It is in this spirit that I urge you to accept these proposals and sign on to the Darfur peace agreement at the earliest time possible,” Salim said. “Both the AU Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council made it clear to us that we have to conclude the talks by the end of this month, and it is my earnest belief that we can achieve an agreement before that date.”
The Sudanese government side responded to Salim’s call for comments by the parties after the presentation, but the rebel movements Sudan Liberation Movement and Justice and Equality Movement kept quiet. “We don’t know the content of the agreement yet, so I cannot comment on it now,” a leader of the SLM, Minni Minawi, told reporters after the plenary.
