ABUJA, 12 June 2005 — African Union mediators were fighting yesterday to get talks aimed at resolving the civil war in Sudan’s Darfur region off the ground, amid arguments over the participation of other countries. The talks, originally scheduled to resume at 10:00 a.m. (0900 GMT) in a conference center in the Nigerian capital under the aegis of the African Union, were finally set to begin at 4:00 p.m.
But a member of the AU mediation team said they would be restricted to the protagonists in the conflict, the Khartoum government and the two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement, with chief mediator Salim Ahmed Salim in the chair.
Another AU source said the blockage centered on the participation of Sudan’s neighbors Chad, strongly resisted by the JEM, and Eritrea, opposed by Khartoum. The AU earlier said the talks had been delayed while Salim, a former Tanzanian foreign minister and secretary-general of the Organization of African Unity, the AU’s predecessor, had consultations with the various parties.
The consultations covered “several issues, relating to the agenda and program of work as well as the format of the talks,” a statement said, adding, “The mediation team has also held meetings with Nigerian and Libyan facilitators as well as with international partners.” The fifth round of talks, and the first for six months, to end the war that has claimed between 180,000 and 300,000 lives, displaced 2.4 million people and sent another 200,000 fleeing to Chad, formally opened here Friday.
Meanwhile, Sudan’s main opposition bloc will demand a larger share of power during Cairo talks with Khartoum and former southern rebels, a spokesman for the umbrella National Democratic Alliance said yesterday. The talks will bring together government officials and both exiled and home-based representatives of the NDA, including the former rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, spokesman Ali Ahmed Al-Sayyed told AFP.
The SPLM signed its own separate peace deal with Khartoum in January ending more than two decades of devastating civil war in the south but the former rebel group remains part of the NDA which it formed with outlawed northern opposition parties in the mid-1990s. “The negotiations will cover the outstanding issues which have not yet been resolved with the government,” said Sayyed, explaining that they “include power-sharing and the status of our armed forces.”
Sudan’s ruling National Congress and the SPLM have insisted on applying general power-sharing quotas agreed in their January peace accord, which give them 52 percent and 28 percent of the seats in a new parliament respectively, leaving other parties with a paltry 20 percent and no power to block decisions. “The share accorded to the other political parties is very small and should be increased,” said Sayyed. “The government and SPLM are therefore required to make concessions so that the NDA can participate in the transitional government.”
The government delegation, led by Federal Rule Minister Nafie Ali Nafie, will also leave for Cairo today. “We are traveling to Cairo to reach a final agreement with the NDA,” Information Minister Abdel Basit Sabdarat told reporters. “There is no obstacle preventing this agreement.”
