Sudan rebels talk to state

2004-04-07 14:19

Ndjamena - Members of the Sudanese government and rebels on Tuesday held their first direct talks on ending the devastating conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan, described by the United Nations as the world's worst ongoing humanitarian and human rights catastrophe.

The breakthrough came only hours after sources close to the Chadian government mediators said their efforts to bring the two sides together appeared to be running into the sand.

The government and rebel representatives met in the Chadian capital Ndjamena in the presence of Chadian President Idriss Deby and international observers.

The participation of the observers had been a precondition set down by the rebels before they would meet face to face with the Khartoum government delegation. The latter had, until Tuesday, refused to accept observers being involved.

Representatives of the Khartoum government and two rebel movements - the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement (MJE) - were seen entering the same room in the Chadian foreign ministry just before 19:00 (18:00 GMT) on Tuesday.

Closed doors

The meeting was held behind closed doors and the agenda was not made available to waiting journalists.

Deby and Chadian mediators were also seen entering the talks, alongside observers from the European Union, the UN, the United States and a Swiss non-governmental organisation, the Henri Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.

French Junior Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier, who had met Deby shortly before the government-rebel meeting, was also in the negotiating room, a source close to the talks told reporters.

There had been fears earlier on Tuesday that the negotiations on ending the Darfur conflict, estimated to have claimed more than 10 000 lives in little more than a year, were about to collapse because the two sides could not agree to meet directly.

The Chadian mediators put forward on Saturday a draft plan for resolving the Darfur conflict.

The plan proposes a ceasefire, guarantees for the safety of the civilian population and measures to resolve the humanitarian crisis, Chadian officials said on condition of anonymity.

"Chad has proposed a humanitarian ceasefire that takes account of the concerns of everyone. It is a document that opens the way to resolve the crisis," one official said on Tuesday.

The Khartoum government was reported to have accepted the plan. But the rebels said on Monday they would only give their response to the document "in the presence of mediators, the government delegation and international observers".

The leader of the MJE delegation, Abubker Hamid Nour, said on Tuesday the rebels had "withdrawn certain points, added some and agreed to others", without going into details.

A United Nations mission began a probe on Tuesday into allegations of widespread atrocities by government-backed militias in Darfur.

"The mission will start in Chad and will interview refugees from Darfur, and will visit Sudan later," UN spokesperson Annick Stevenson said.

But she later said that the mission had not been given the green light yet by Khartoum and the UN was continuing negotiations to try to gain access to western Sudan.

- AFP