From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed Mar 10 2010 - 08:24:21 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=al6EOfxEm27Y
Sudan Needs Quick Darfur Peace Ahead of Elections, U.S. Says
By Sarah McGregor and Alan Boswell
March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Time is running out for negotiators to deliver a
peace agreement in Sudan’s western Darfur region before next month’s general
elections and a 2011 referendum on independence for the oil-producing south,
a top U.S. envoy said.
“We have this little window where we really need to get the framework
solidified,” Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, told reporters
today in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. “There is going to be a lot of things
that are keeping us from focusing on Darfur.”
Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir signed a temporary accord with the Justice
and Equality Movement, one of the main rebel groups in Darfur, on Feb. 23 in
Doha, the capital of Qatar. The two sides set a March 15 deadline for
reaching a full-fledged peace agreement. Sudan is scheduled to hold its
first multiparty elections in 24 years next month, while Southern Sudan will
vote in a January referendum to decide whether to secede from Sudan.
Gration will leave Kenya this week for Doha to try to help clinch a treaty
and unify other rebel groups in Darfur by late March, he said. Other
negotiating partners include the leaders of Chad and Eritrea and officials
of the Arab League, the African Union and the United Nations, he said.
The elections for the presidency, parliament and state governorships will
take place five years after a peace agreement ended a 20-year civil war
between the mainly Christian and animist south and the Muslim north.
“In the next two weeks I think we are going to see a real big focus on the
election,” Gration said. “There is not going to be a lot of bandwidth to be
doing Darfur and negotiations.”
Military Operations
Other rebel groups, such as the Sudan Liberation Movement faction led by
Abdel Wahid Nur, have refused to start peace talks before the government
halts military operations and disarms militias.
The war in Darfur has claimed about 300,000 lives and forced more than 2.7
million people from their homes over the last seven years, according to the
UN. The Sudanese government says the death toll is about 10,000.
Previous peace agreements have failed to end the conflict in Darfur, which
flared in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government accusing it
of neglecting the region.
The authorities in Khartoum, the capital, responded by deploying army units
and government-backed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed.
Bashir, who has ruled Sudan since coming into power in a military coup in
1989, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges he
was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Gration urged Bashir to respond to the war crime court’s requests for more
information regarding his arrest warrant.
“President al-Bashir should be responsive to the International Criminal
Court,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Sarah McGregor in Nairobi at
smcgregor5@bloomberg.net; Alan Boswell in Nairobi via Johannesburg at 1999
or pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 10, 2010 05:29 EST
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