Sudanese rebels demand talks
2004-04-06 12:47
Ndjamena - Sudanese rebels on Monday demanded direct talks with the Khartoum government to end the conflict in the Darfur region, which the United Nations says is now the world's worst humanitarian and human rights catastrophe.
"We had two conditions to come here - direct negotiations and the presence of the international community," a spokesperson for one of the two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (MJE), said.
He was speaking after representatives of the rebels and the Sudanese government held separate meetings at Chad's foreign ministry with the country's president, Idriss Deby.
Deby's government is trying to mediate an end to the conflict, which is thought to have killed more than 10 000 people in just over a year.
Negotiations
The mediators have not managed to persuade the two sides to engage in direct talks since the negotiations kicked off in the Chadian capital Ndjamena last week. Chadian officials are currently shuttling between the two sides.
Representatives of the Khartoum government have accepted a plan put forward on Saturday by the Chadian mediators as the basis for negotiating an end to the Darfur conflict.
The Chadian plan proposes a ceasefire, guarantees for the safety of the civilian population, and measures to resolve the humanitarian crisis, said a Chadian official.
But the rebels have still not said whether they will accept the plan.
The conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, began in February 2003 and intensified just as Khartoum and the country's main rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, started finalising a deal to end Sudan's wider civil war, which began in 1983.
More than 10 000 people are thought to have died in just over a year of fighting in Darfur between rebels and government-backed militia groups.
An estimated 670 000 people have been forced from their homes, many seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.
United Nations officials say the Darfur conflict is now the "world's greatest humanitarian and human rights catastrophe".