Rebel groups snub Darfur peace plan

Two of the three rebel groups in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region are refusing to sign a peace plan today, jeopardising efforts to end the bloodbath that has cost at least 180,000 lives.

The meetings in Abuja, Nigeria, continued for several hours after a midnight deadline. A US envoy said they would resume later this morning.

Abdelwahid Muhamed El Nur of the main rebel Sudan Liberation Army walked out of the meeting with government officials and negotiators, saying simply: “We are not going to sign.”

A second rebel faction, the small Justice and Equality Movement, also earlier said it would not sign the agreement. A third faction has said it would return to meetings later after consulting with its people in Sudan.

Ahmed Tugod, chief negotiator for the Justice and Equality Movement, told The Associated Press that the main sticking point was his rebels’ demand for the post of second vice president.

“We decided not to sign it unless changes are made,” he said. Negotiations dragged on for hours past a midnight deadline in an effort to get the Sudan government and three rebel factions to agree to the peace plan

The meeting would resume at 9am on Monday with at least one of the rebel movements, said US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick, who the US sent as an envoy to assist in the negotiations.

He did not say which group, but earlier today a splinter rebel faction led by Mini Menawi left the meeting, saying it needed time to consult and would return later.

Zoellick outlined revisions made under the proposal that he said would give greater political power to the rebel movement and strengthen their participation in the armed forces of Sudan.

“These are all opportunities, but it requires leadership on the part of the movement that frankly is in question,” Zoellick said.

Denis Sassou-Nguesso, president of the Republic of Congo and current head of the 53-nation African Union, said of the process: “It has not yet ended.”

El Nur, of the main rebel Sudan Liberation Army, did not elaborate on why his group would not sign the peace deal. However, earlier in the morning, he and his colleagues briefly walked out of the meeting to hold a noisy consultation in a corner of the garden of the presidential villa where the talks were being held before returning to the meeting.

As el Nur returned to the meeting, Menawi’s faction left, saying they would return hours later.

Four pages of last-ditch revisions to the 85-page peace plan drawn up by African Union mediators offered concessions to the rebels on integrating fighters into the Sudan armed forces, compensation for war victims and power-sharing.

They were presented to the warring parties yesterday afternoon, hours before a deadline to reach agreement, already extended twice since Sunday.

That deadline passed at midnight, but the negotiators were continuing to meet for several hours past the time limit. They did not explain the time extension.

Rebel negotiators, who rejected the initial deal but faced intense pressure from the European Union, Britain and the US to compromise, were optimistic.

“We are going to study them, but the improvements give us the sign that we can agree, that we do not need to renegotiate and that there will be no further delay for the final agreement,” Jaffer Monro of the largest rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement, said.

The Sudanese government agreed to the initial proposal and has shown increasing flexibility since the US and Britain sent top envoys to join the talks in Nigeria’s capital. A spokesman indicated on Wednesday that it could accept the US-drafted changes as well.

The European Union called on the rebels to come to a “definitive agreement”, and said failure would be “irresponsible considering the enormous human suffering”.

African leaders in Abuja for a health conference were due to meet warring parties last night, to add pressure to resolve the issue.

Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in Darfur, a vast region about the size of France, erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 with rebels demanding regional autonomy.

The central government is accused of responding by unleashing Janjaweed militias upon civilians, a charge Sudan denies.

At least 180,000 people have been killed and more than two million forced to flee their homes in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The conflict also has spilled into Chad and the Central African Republic.

In New York, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan urged all countries to press the warring parties to reach agreement but warned the international community had an obligation to protect civilians in conflict-wracked Darfur, by force if need be.

At last September’s UN summit, Annan said, world leaders “pledged solemnly, individually and collectively to take responsibility for the protection of people in such situations, arguing that it is a responsibility of each member state to protect” its own people.

“But where they fail, or are unable to do so, or they themselves are the perpetrators, the international community, through the (Security) Council, has to take action, and, if need by, by force,” Annan said in an interview yesterday on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS television.

“And now we have to redeem that pledge, that solemn pledge of September,” he said.