Sudan Ends Peace Talks with Janjaweed Rebel Groups

[Saalax]

 

Sudan is withdrawing from peace talks with Darfur rebel groups, according to a Sudanese official. Despite the withdrawal, Sudan is still committed to making peace. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir threatened to call off the talks in Qatar and return negotiations to Sudan if agreement was not reached by Thursday. "If we reach an agreement tomorrow, then God be praised, but if we don’t then we will withdraw our negotiating team," President Omar al-Bashir said at a rally Wednesday in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state. Al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in the western Darfur region, said he would not deal with rebels bearing arms after the talks ended in Doha, Qatar. "These (rebel) movements are enjoying the negotiation process and their residency in foreign hotels while the people of Darfur are suffering the flames of war," al-Bashir said. "We will not negotiate with anyone who carries a gun and claims to lead an armed group that represents the will of the people."

 

Al-Bashir carried out his threat after negotiations failed on Thursday. Chief government negotiator Ghazi Salaheddine says the Sudanese delegation will leave for Khartoum on Friday. The anti-government Justice and Equality Movement called al-Bashir’s statement a declaration of war. "What the president said yesterday has blocked the way ahead on the road to a political solution," said a statement from Ahmed Hussein Adam, a spokesman for the group. "It is a declaration of war and a limiting of any future chance for peace."

 

Last minute disagreements ended the goal of negotiators to reach an agreement by the end of the year. The deadline was ahead of a key referendum on independence for Southern Sudan that begins January 9. North and South, dominated by non-Arab Christians and animists, have fought one of Africa’s longest-running civil wars. The Darfur conflict is separate from the North-South divide, but independence for the South could help embolden rebels in Darfur. Fighting began in 2003 between rebel groups and al-Bashir’s Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. More than 300,000 people have been killed in this desolate region, where hopes for peace have gone up and down over the last few months.

 

 

 

africanaonline

[Saalax]

Sudan's Government Quits Peace Talks With Darfur Rebels, State-Run TV Says

By Maram Mazen - Dec 31, 2010 2:49 PM GMT

 

 

 

Sudan withdrew its negotiators from peace talks on Darfur, a move that the biggest rebel group in the western region warned would be a “declaration of war.”

 

Today’s departure of the Sudanese delegation from the negotiations, mediated by host nation Qatar, coincides with an outbreak of fighting between Sudanese forces and a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, the only rebel group with which the government has signed a peace deal, state-run Sudan TV said.

 

“We told the mediators that negotiating in the conventional manner, the negotiating delegations arguing without reaching clear resolutions, is not helpful,” presidential adviser Ghazi Salaheddine Atabani told Qatar-based Al Jazeera television yesterday when Sudan announced its intention to leave the talks.

 

The Qatari-led mediation over the last two years failed to find a final peace deal to end a seven-year conflict between the Sudanese army and pro-government militias, and the mostly African rebels who took up arms against the state, accusing it of neglecting Darfur.

 

Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir had said on several occasions that the end of 2010 would mark the conclusion of the Doha talks. It would be the last chance for rebel groups to reach an agreement with the government during the talks, Atabani said last month.

 

“There aren’t any new issues that haven’t been discussed,” Atabani told Sudan TV in Khartoum today upon arrival from Doha.

 

‘Declaration of War’

 

Darfur’s main rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, had halted talks several times over the last two years, accusing the government of violating cease-fire agreements. The movement rejected the government’s decision to withdraw its delegation from Doha.

 

“We see this as a declaration of war, and the movement is preparing itself for that,” El Taher El Feki, chairman of JEM’s legislative council, said in a telephone interview from London yesterday.

 

Clashes in Darfur, along with tribal fighting, banditry and disease, have claimed about 300,000 lives and forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes, according to United Nations estimates. The Sudanese government puts the violence-related death toll at about 10,000.

 

The government is still committed to the peace process, Atabani said. Any peace talks after Doha will be held in Sudan, state-run SUNA news agency quoted al-Bashir as saying Dec. 29.

 

Other rebel groups, such as a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdel Wahid Nur, have refused to start peace talks before the government halts military operations and disarms militias.

 

More than 18,000 people were displaced as they fled clashes this month in the village of Khor Abeche in South Darfur state between the Sudanese army and another Sudan Liberation Movement faction, known as SLM-Minnawi, the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission said. The SLM signed a peace deal with the government in 2006.

 

Clashes between the two sides broke out Dec. 10, with the Sudanese army vowing to crush Minnawi’s forces, while he said he is ready for war with Sudanese government forces.

 

To contact the reporter on this story: Maram Mazen in Khartoum via the Cairo newsroom at