Guillaume Lavallee
Agence France Presse
KHARTOUM: Qatari-hosted talks between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels due to begin on Monday in Doha have again been postponed, a mediator said on Sunday, amid a lingering split in rebel ranks. Instead, civil society members, including representatives of the diaspora, will meet in Doha for “consultations” on how to clinch a peace deal between Khartoum and the rebels, he said.
“We want to know their point of view on the peace process” before the start of talks between the government and the rebels, the UN-African Union mediator told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“There is no date yet” for talks between the Khartoum government and rebel representatives, he added.
The Qatari-hosted talks had been slated for October 28, but UN mediator Djibril Bassole said at the time they would be postponed until November 16 because it coincided with an African Union summit.
Bassole said the summit would consider a report on Darfur prepared by a high-level panel headed by South Africa’s former president, Thabo Mbeki.
No details about the recommendations have been revealed, but Mbeki said in October: “The resolution of the conflict in Darfur has to be brought about by the Sudanese people themselves and cannot be imposed from outside.”
In February, key Darfur rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) signed an agreement with the government in Khartoum on confidence-building measures aimed at clinching a formal peace deal.
And in May the JEM agreed to resume talks with Khartoum which it broke off after the International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur.
Since then attempts to make progress have foundered despite efforts by American special envoy Scott Gration who managed to bring together representatives of rebel factions for talks to fine-tune a common stance.
Libya has been also mediating among smaller rebel groups.
But Abdel-Wahid Mohammad Nur, the leader of the main faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army, one of the main rebel groups in Darfur along with the JEM, is refusing to take part in the Doha talks.
And the JEM says there is no point in going to Qatar if there is no unity among rebels – who have split into 20 movements, factions and smaller groups since 2006.
“We cannot have discussions in Doha if there is no unity,” JEM chief Khalil Ibrahim told AFP. “The best way to launch peace talks is to begin with the JEM.”
Khartoum has meanwhile urged all sides to resume the peace talks.
“We encourage everyone to go to Doha. We must work in a way that no one person should have a right of veto” over a possible peace deal, Bashir adviser Ghazi Salaheddine said on Saturday in Paris.
The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur first rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum in February 2003.
Kidnappers seek ransom for Red Cross worker
NDJAMENA: The kidnappers of a French Red Cross worker in east Chad have demanded over a million dollars to free him, a source close to the international peacekeeping force in the region said Friday.
“The hostage telephoned his superiors in Ndjamena Thursday to tell them people are ask[ing] for $1.5 million to free him, without giving any more details,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.
Several armed men on Monday night seized Laurent Maurice, an agronomist who was in east Chad to assess recent harvests, in the village of Kawa, near the border with Sudan.
General Oki Dagache, who heads coordination with the international force in eastern Chad, has blamed the kidnapping on “crooks from Sudan” and said the kidnappers crossed the border back into Sudan’s Western Darfur region.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called for the “rapid and unconditional release of its kidnapped staff member” and said Tuesday that it had temporarily suspended its activities in eastern Chad.
The French Foreign Ministry has requested Maurice’s “release as soon as possible” and said it did not have many details but was “in the process of trying to collect information.” Besides supporting a health center in the village of Kawa, the ICRC runs other programs in eastern Chad, including offering aid to those displaced by internal conflict, as well as visiting detainees in prisons.
Aid agencies have reported several attacks in the region in the past year, with bandits often blamed for the violence.
On Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that six aid agencies had temporarily suspended operations and that 37,000 people would be deprived of relief as a result of the withdrawal.
“In two weeks one humanitarian worker has been killed and one kidnapped,” said OCHA spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs.
“Six humanitarian organizations have had to temporarily suspend their operations in eastern Chad,” she told journalists.
Before Maurice was kidnapped, another aid worker, a Chadian working for the agency SOLIDARITES, was also killed in the area close to Sudan recently, said Byrs.
Dagache on Friday urged all aid agencies to “coordinate their movements with the Conafit,” his liaison team with the international mission in Chad, and to inform the “commander of operations of the integrated security detachment,” both based in Abeche, Chad’s main eastern town.
“Any organization that does not conform to this imperative need for coordination and information could see its activities in these zones [eastern Chad] called into question,” the general warned. – AFP
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