Deadlocked

Stalled Darfur peace talks in Nigeria augur ill for Sudan, writes Gamal Nkrumah

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The Sudanese government delegation walking away from the venue of the Sudanese peace talks on the Darfur crisis in Abuja

Representatives of the Sudanese government and the armed opposition groups from Darfur meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja for peace talks have failed to clinch a deal in spite of mounting regional and international pressure.

The talks in Abuja are deadlocked over the question of who is to disarm first. The Sudanese government insists on the armed opposition groups disarming first. The Sudanese government is accused by the international community of using delaying tactics to slow down the pace of the talks. The armed opposition groups, on the other hand, are impatient with the slow pace of the Abuja talks.

The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the two main armed opposition groups from Darfur, are refusing to disarm first and claim that attacks from the Janjaweed, Arabised militias allied to the Sudanese government, have increased in the past two weeks.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned on Wednesday that the Sudanese government must "redouble its efforts" to end the war in Darfur. "While we have greater access on the humanitarian front a lot needs to be done on the security front," Annan said.

As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press, the United States was expected to introduce a draft of a new UN resolution on Sudan. The UN Security Council passed a resolution on 30 July giving Sudan 30 days to disarm the Janjaweed or face diplomatic and economic sanctions.

Khartoum, on the other hand, favours the mediation efforts of the African Union (AU).

Sudanese Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Othman Ismail asked the AU to deploy more peace-keeping troops in Sudan's war-torn province of Darfur. The AU, backed by the international community, wants to increase the number of peace-keeping troops in Darfur.

"We need more monitors to come and help in the building of confidence and to supervise the ceasefire," Ismail told reporters at a press conference in Tokyo.

Ismail, who is on a five-day trip to Japan, said that Sudan was open to suggestions form the African Union.

"I am pessimistic about the outcome of the talks in Abuja," Al-Shafie Khedr, a leading member of the NDA, told the Weekly. Khedr who had met several times with members of the SLA in Paris and Asmara told the Weekly that the two sides in Abuja have merely scratched the surface. He said there are still many vital issues to be discussed. "They have barely tackled security issues on which there has been no agreement. They must eventually focus on the issues that led to the war in the first place such as marginalisation and the lack of participation by the people of Darfur in the decision-making process."

The Sudanese government signed two historic agreements with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella grouping of mainly northern opposition parties and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the country's most powerful armed opposition group based in the south.

The two deals are the Jeddah agreement which was signed by Sudanese Vice-President Ali Othman Mohamed Taha and the NDA Chairman Mohamed Othman Al-Mirghani in Saudi Arabia, while the Naivasha peace protocols were signed by the Sudanese government and the SPLA. The two agreements are widely regarded as blueprints for Sudanese political stability. The first mainly dealing with northern opposition groups and the second with the southern Sudanese.

The armed opposition groups in Darfur want to conclude similar deals with the Sudanese government which would govern relations between the government and western Sudan.

"The Sudanese government has systematically refused to acknowledge that the Janjaweed pose a security threat to the people of Darfur," Farouk Abu Essa, former Sudanese foreign minister and former head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union told the Weekly.

Abu Essa said the armed opposition groups in Darfur want to be treated like the SPLA. They want to strike a deal with the Sudanese government similar to the Naivasha peace protocols.