Sudan talks: Most rebels pullout

2007-10-25 08:21

Khartoum - Peace talks to end four years of violence in the Sudanese region of Darfur are to open in Libya on Saturday, but the chances of success have been dimmed by the 11th-hour pullout of most of the rebels.

The talks hosted by the United Nations and the African Union were aimed at ending "the world's most devastating humanitarian crisis", born out of a civil war that had killed at least 200 000 people and displaced two million more, according to UN figures.

However, hopes of a breakthrough between the Sudanese government and the rebels had been undermined by the announcement by seven rebel factions that they would stay away from the talks in the central Libyan town of Sirte.

Only one rebel group - the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction of Khamis Abdallah Bakr - had said it would attend the talks, while a second - the SLM-Unity grouping - had yet to announce a clear position.

Displaced persons' camp attacked

Eric Reeves, a Sudan expert at Smith College, Massachusetts, said: "The chances of any meaningful presence by representative rebel groups is very slim."

He said: "The Kalma attacks created a very bad atmosphere for the talks, which were already struggling", referring to rebel accusations that the Sudanese army and its Janjaweed militia allies attacked Darfur's largest displaced persons' camp.

Reeves said the ethnic minority rebels were unlikely to be impressed by a ceasefire offer made by President Omar al-Beshir ahead of a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican last month.

"They will always be able to say that if rebels attack, we reserve the right to defend ourselves," Reeves said.

He also roundly criticised the choice of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as host for the new talks between the government and the rebels, describing it as "disastrous".

He said: "Libya has done more to foment violence than anyone else in the region. Many of the Janjaweed were armed by Gaddafi."

'We'll not attend talks'

The UN envoy to Sudan's Darfur region Jan Eliasson on Wednesday appealed to Darfur rebels to attend peace talks, saying in a statement "we may have a very dangerous development if we miss this opportunity".

Both the Islamist Justice and Equality Movement and six factions of the secular SLM had said they would not attend the Sirte talks.

The JEM said: "The movement is not ready to take part in the masquerade that will turn Sirte into a slave market and a place of renunciation of peoples' rights."

UN and AU mediation "has not produced a clear and precise vision of how to re-launch the peace process", said a statement signed by the movement's spokesperson Ahmed Hussein Adam after preliminary talks hosted by the two international organisations in southern Sudan on Tuesday.

The Sirte talks now risked being a repeat of the last peace talks between the rebels and the government in Nigeria in 2006 in which only one of three negotiating factions signed a peace deal.

- AFP