AU gives Darfur parties 48 hours to strike deal

By Estelle Shirbon

ABUJA (Reuters) – African Union mediators agreed on Monday
to give warring parties in Sudan’s Darfur region an extra 48
hours to agree an AU-proposed peace deal after a midnight
deadline expired.

It followed a request from U.S. officials, who said the
extra time would allow for agreement on two critical security
issues — the disarmament of Janjaweed militia accused of rape,
murder and looting, and the integration of rebel forces into
the Sudanese security forces.

“We shall stop the clock for the next 48 hours so that the
opportunity is used … by the parties to engage amongst
themselves,” said Salim Ahmed Salim, chief AU mediator.

Two of the rebel groups said on Sunday they would refuse to
sign the peace deal in its current form, throwing into doubt
two years of talks to end fighting which has killed tens of
thousands.

“We are not going to accept this document for signature
unless there are fundamental changes made to the document,”
Ahmed Tugod, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) chief
negotiator, told Reuters.

The AU had set a midnight (2300 GMT) Sunday deadline to
conclude the talks and said it would not reopen substantial
negotiations on the proposed text.

The government of Sudan said earlier it was ready to sign
the plan drafted by the AU mediators, but one of the factions
of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) said it would not sign the
proposed agreement unless its demands were met in full.

“If the proposal does not include all our demands we will
not sign,” Seif Haroun, spokesman for the SLA faction led by
Minni Arcua Minnawi, told reporters.

But the chief negotiator of the SLA Minni faction,
Abduljabbar Dosa, left the possibility open that an agreement
could be reached in the talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

“The position of the movement is not fixed the document
needs to be enhanced. If it is enhanced then it is possible to
make an agreement.”

It was not immediately known what the position of the other
SLA faction — a third rebel group involved in the fighting —
was on the 85-page draft peace settlement.

The draft agreement was the result of tough negotiations on
security, wealth-sharing and power-sharing that have dragged on
for two years while the conflict in Darfur has escalated.

WASHINGTON MARCH

In Washington, several thousand Americans, led by religious
leaders, entertainers and politicians, marched to urge the
United States to halt “genocide” in Darfur.

“Darfur deserves to live. We are its only hope,” Nobel
Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel told the
crowd. Other speakers included Illinois Democratic Senator
Barack Obama and actor George Clooney, who visited Darfur last
week.

The rebels said their objections to the agreement included
the wording over how the Janjaweed would be disarmed, and
concerns about political representation and compensation.

The rebels took up arms in early 2003 in ethnically mixed
Darfur, an arid region the size of France, over what they saw
as neglect by the Arab-dominated central government.

Khartoum used militias, known locally as Janjaweed and
drawn from Arab tribes, to crush the rebellion. The fighting
has killed tens of thousands of people while a campaign of
arson, looting and rape has driven more than 2 million from
their homes into refugee camps in Darfur and neighboring Chad.

All sides have continued fighting despite a 2004 ceasefire,
according to the AU, which has 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur,
and aid groups say violence prevents them from delivering food
and medicine to tens of thousands of refugees.