US genocide declaration casts shadow over Darfur talks

Peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebels in its western Darfur region were adjourned on Friday as both sides pondered the implication of a US government declaration that genocide had been committed in Darfur. Announcing the adjournment, Assane Ba, the spokesman for the African Union (AU) mediation team, said the talks would resume in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Tuesday. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo would once more speak directly to both sides to urge them to be more conciliatory, he added. US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate committee in Washington on Thursday that government investigations showed “that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjawid bear responsibility” for it. The United States subsequently proposed a new resolution to the UN Security Council that threatens to impose sanctions on Sudan's fast-growing oil industry. This currently pumps about 320,000 barrels per day. Sudanese government representatives at the three-week-old peace talks in Abuja vehemently condemned Powell’s statement, saying Washington was sending “a wrong signal” that would discourage the two rebel movements in Darfur from entering into meaningful peace negotiations. “Powell is making a mistake,” Najeeb Abdel Wahab, Sudan’s deputy foreign minister, who is currently leading the government delegation in Abuja, told reporters. He predicted that the rebels would bet on UN sanctions becoming a reality and would therefore become more intransigent. "They will want to wait for action to be taken by the UN Security Council, and for that will not be forthcoming in negotiations,” Wahab said. However, the rebels, who have insisted on an independent, international probe of killings in the Darfur region, welcomed Powell’s statement. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which launched a rebellion in Darfur in February 2003, said the US allegation of genocide confirmed what they had been saying for a long time. “We’ve had the same position all this while that the Sudanese government has been using the Janjawid militia to kill innocent people in Darfur,” said SLA spokesman Abelhafiz Mustafa Musa. “It shows we’ve been fighting a legitimate cause,” he added. “Genocide is a crime against humanity,” said JEM spokesman Ahmed Hussain Adam. He called for Janjawid to be disarmed and for leaders of the Arab militia group and Sudan government officials to be charged with crimes against humanity. The negotiations between the government and the rebels were already languishing before the United States toughened its stance against Khartoum, forcing the African Union (AU) mediators to use all their inventiveness to prevent them from collapsing. A humanitarian accord agreed after the first 10 days of talks, remained unsigned after the rebels demanded the immediate disarming of the Janjawid and set other conditions before they would initial it. The talks then moved on to security issues, but the rebels rejected AU proposals for the forces to be confined to cantonment sites as part of a ceasefire monitoring process that would lead to the disarmament of both the rebels and the pro-government Janjawid. A new draft proposal tabled by the mediators on Wednesday dropped the requirement that rebel fighters be confined to cantonment sites in the hope of moving the process forward, but this draft was in turn rejected by Khartoum. Khartoum has been widely accused of using the Janjawid, an Arab militia mounted on horses and camels, to attack black African farmers in Darfur and drive them from their villages. The United Nations estimates that up to 50,000 people have been killed in the conflict and some 1.4 million people have been made homeless. These include nearly 200,000 who have fled as refugees to neighbouring Chad. The Security Council gave the Sudanese government a 30-day ultimatum on July 30 to address the humanitarian situation in Darfur and disarm the Janjawid. But this expired with Secretary General Kofi Annan telling the Security Council that Khartoum had not done enough.