After a week of standstill, Darfur talks could be suspended

One week after arriving in Chad for peace negotiations, the Sudan government and two armed movements in Darfur province have still not held direct talks on how to end a bitter armed conflict which has brought misery to more than a million people. A senior official of the Chadian government, which is trying to act as mediator between the two sides, said on Tuesday that this impasse could force Chad to abandon its efforts to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table. “Unfortunately, we haven’t had any direct talks. There is an indirect dialogue. We have the feeling that opinions are converging”, Ahmad Allammi, the official spokesman at the negotiations, told IRIN by telephone from the Chadian capital N’djamena. But Allammi, a political advisor to Chadian President Idriss Deby, warned: “If in the next fewl hours we don’t progress, we could be forced to suspend the negotiations.” So far Chadian diplomats have been shuttling between different floors of a N’djamena hotel, trying to convince delegations from the Sudanese government, and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Movement for Justice and Equality (MJE) rebel movements, to sit at the same table. “They are under the same roof, but not at the same table”, Allammi said. If Chad suspends its mediation, it would prolong what the United Nations has called the “worst humanitarian crisis” in the world. Allammi said the Chadian mediators had presented both sides with a draft ceasefire-agreement which had been agreed to in principle. However, the sticking point in the talks is the suggested presence of Western diplomats as observers. Without giving details, Allami said the Sudanese government delegation was refusing to allow the presence of “ a western delegation.” The rebels favoured having as many international observers as possible, he added. The rebel groups say they are fighting for greater political and economic rights for Darfur, Sudan’s western region, which borders Chad. They accuse the government of neglecting the remote and arid region which is now plagued by conflict between pro-government Arabs and discontented blacks. The conflict, which began early last year, has caused more 110,000 Sudanese to seek refuge in neighbouring Chad and has internally displaced more than 750,000 villagers with Darfur. It has led to countless rapes and killings of civilians as villages are burned and looted. Human Rights Watch has accused the government and its Arab militia allies of using a scorched-earth policy as a fighting tactic.