Sudan peace talks at stalemate

Darfur peace talks made little headway today as Sudanese insurgents insisted they would not lay down their weapons until pro-government Arab militiamen stop targeting largely black African civilians in their country’s troubled western region.

The rebel’s refusal to disarm came after a senior Sudanese official rejected the idea of an African peacekeeping mission to Darfur, where more than 30,000 people have been killed in an 18-month conflict and an estimated 1.2 million pushed from their homes.

“We’re an independent movement and we’re fighting for our people and our rights. This force is our guarantee, how can we disarm them?” said Abdelwahid Muhamed El Nur, chairman of the Sudan Liberation Army rebel group.

The talks in Abuja, Nigeria are an attempt to resolve the crisis in Darfur before the UN Security Council’s August 30 deadline for Khartoum to disarm the Arab militia known as Janjaweed or face economic and diplomatic sanctions.

“The Janjaweed are carrying out ethnic cleansing and genocide. If there is a security arrangement, disarmament will come gradually. But now we are not ready to speak about disarmament,” El Nur said as the African Union-sponsored talks got under way.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is also the AU chairman, pressed both sides to comprise, saying rebel disarmament was a key to lasting peace while warning the government against resisting an international presence in Darfur.

“One thing that will be a real disaster is for the international community to feel absolutely dissatisfied with the handling of events by the government of Sudan to the extent that they will have to unleash more than even what we are asking for,” he told reporters.

There are 150 AU troops from Rwanda in Darfur protecting some 80 union monitors observing a largely ignored cease fire between the government and rebels.

Obasanjo said all sides at the talks had agreed on an agenda and that the conference would continue – despite being originally planned for only a single day. He did not say how long the talks would last.

:: The international Red Cross said it was launching a major airlift of relief supplies to Sudan, its largest operation of the kind since the war in Iraq.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in Geneva it was planning six trips by September 5 with one of the world’s largest cargo planes, an Antonov 124, to carry trucks and other equipment to the African country.