Darfur talks bogged down by bickering over agenda

Talks between the Sudanese government and rebels from the country’s Darfur region, broke up early on Tuesday as both sides failed to agree on an agenda for resuming formal peace negotiations. The talks mediated by the African Union (AU) were due to resume on Wednesday. The Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), one of two rebel movements represented at the talks, said it had asked for more time to respond to political proposals tabled by mediators. “The SLA asked for more time to come out with a clear position on the proposals,” rebel spokesman Ahmed Hussain Adam told reporters. The peace talks resumed in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Monday after a first round in late August and early September failed to make progress. But the AU mediators immediately faced difficulties in bringing the two sides face-to-face around the same conference table. The SLA and its ally, the Justice and Equity Movement (JEM) insisted that direct talks with the government delegation should only take place once an agenda for the negotiations had been worked out. There are deep differences between the two sides on how to proceed on security issues, including the disarmament of the rebels and the pro-government Janjawid militia. The rebels are demanding the immediate disarming of the Janjawid militia, which draws its fighters from nomadic Arab tribes. The militia has been blamed for repeated attacks on black African civilians in Darfur which the United States has condemned as genocide. The Sudanese government has accused the rebels of committing equally serious atrocities against civilians and insists they disarm first. Both sides accused each other of escalating the conflict in the days leading up to this latest round of talks. The Justice and Equity Movement said government planes had bombed settlements in eastern Darfur around the rebel stronghold of Allaiat over the past week, killing dozens of people and displacing more than 7,000. The government countered that it was forced to defend itself against rebel attacks in the same area. Despite the break in the talks, AU officials said separate meetings had been arranged with the different delegations to persuade them to make compromises before the talks resume on Wednesday. “We want to persuade all the parties to see the need for compromise so that we can make progress for the sake of the many lives at stake,” one AU official told IRIN. The United Nations estimates that two million people need humanitarian assistance in Darfur following two years of fighting which has displaced 1.6 million civilians from their homes and has sent 200,000 refugees seeking shelter in eastern Chad. An estimated 70,000 people in the semi-arid region have died from hunger and disease over the past 10 months. Diplomats are worried that the onset of the dry season could trigger an upsurge in fighting in Darfur. Two new rebel groups have recently emerged in the region that are not even represented at the Abuja peace talks. Last week, the AU agreed to upgrade its team of 150 ceasefire monitors in Darfur backed by a 300-strong protection force into a full-scale military force of more than 3,000 men with an extended mandate to protect humanitarian operations and deter armed groups from attacking civilians. Nigerian army spokesman, Colonel Mohammed Yusuf, said on Tuesday that nearly 200 Nigerian soldiers were ready and waiting to be air-lifted into Darfur as part of the troop reinforcements. A detachment of Rwandan soldiers was also on standby to fly in from Kigali.