More Darfur peace talks against backdrop of continuing violence

Peace talks to end almost two years of conflict in Darfur are set to restart on Friday but a top UN official warned that the new round was headed for failure unless the Sudanese government and rebel groups stopped blasting holes in a ceasefire agreement. At the previous round of African Union-sponsored talks last month in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, both sides signed accords pledging to improve security in the western Sudan region and guarantee aid workers access to civilians caught up in the crisis. Since then the AU has reported rebel attacks and government military raids which have forced thousands of innocent Darfuris to flee their homes, and several aid agencies including the UN World Food Programme and the charity Save The Children have had to temporarily suspend their work in certain areas. Delegates from Darfur's two main rebel groups arrived in the Abuja on Friday for the fourth round of negotiations and Khartoum representatives were expected in time for meetings to begin in the evening. But ahead of the talks, the UN's Special Representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, questioned what could be achieved against a backdrop of continued fighting. "This round of negotiations... is headed for failure if the parties do not show restraint," Pronk said in a statement on Thursday, expressing his concern at the escalation of violence in Darfur. In Abuja on Friday, AU officials struck a more hopeful tone. AU spokesman Assane Ba said that after looking at how the November security and humanitarian accords had fared, the talks would focus on political and socio-economic issues, which he described as the last outstanding issue on the agenda. The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003 when the rebels took up arms against the government, accusing Khartoum of decades of neglect and oppression. The Sudanese government tried to put down the rebellion using an Arab militia, known as the Janjawid, which has also been accused of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the villagers in Darfur. At the November talks, the AU drafted a declaration of principles which included recognising the ethnic, cultural, religious and social diversity in Sudan, vowing to uphold the unity and sovereignty of the country, and the need for an equitable distribution of power and national wealth. "We will try and finalise the issues and reach some understanding," Ba told IRIN. Before leaving for Abuja, the head of Sudan's delegation Majzoub al-Khalifa, told reporters in Khartoum that the government would do its best to reach an agreement "before the end of this year so that peace will be finalised by January." On Friday leaders from the two rebel movements -- the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) -- declined to talk to reporters in Abuja about what they hoped to achieve during the talks until their consultations to fix common positions were completed. But privately, most rebel delegates stressed their minimum demands remained achieving regional autonomy for Darfur. “We’re looking for a federal system that will decentralise power,” JEM delegate Ibrahim Sadiq, told IRIN. “We’ve tried centralisation since independence, but it’s nonsense.” The UN calls Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands of people have died and about 2.3 million more are in desperate need of aid. The fighting has displaced about 1.45 million Sudanese within Darfur, and sent another 200,000 fleeing across the border into Chad. "Chaos is looming as order is collapsing," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned in his latest report, released a week ago. Around 900 AU monitors are on the ground, although more than 3,000 have been pledged. And on Thursday the New York-based group Human Rights Watch called for their immediate deployment with an enlarged mandate to protect civilians. The current round of talks in Abuja are expected to last about two weeks, delegates said.