Darfur peace talks make sluggish progress

Hit by power cuts and administrative hitches, the Darfur peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja made slow progress on Thursday, a spokesman for the African Union (AU) which is sponsoring the negotiations said. Delegates at the talks circled around the first and least controversial item on the agenda - humanitarian aid - before adjourning until Saturday, he told IRIN by telephone. Meanwhile rebel leaders back in Darfur warned of a rough ride ahead when negotiations finally got round to the agenda's second item - security. The Darfur conflict erupted 18 months ago when two rebel groups demanded a better political and economic deal from the Sudanese government for the arid western region. They accuse Khartoum of trying to clamp down on their insurgency by employing a mounted Arab militia, known as the Janjawid, to loot and burn black African villages. The United Nations estimates the conflict has killed at least 30,000 people and driven almost 1.5 million more from their homes, with most displaced in Sudan and nearly 200,000 fleeing over the border to Chad. Improving access for aid workers was the first item up for discussion in Abuja on Thursday, after delegates had spent most of the first three days wrangling over the summit's official agenda. AU spokesman Assane Ba said the Sudanese government delegation had delayed presenting its assessment of the humanitarian situation on Wednesday because it had wanted a written copy of the UN's report on the subject, something the world body was not immediately able to supply. On Thursday, Sudan finally told its side of the humanitarian aid story. However, a power cut at the conference centre venue interrupted proceedings for a couple of hours. When the microphone eventually passed to the two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), they asked for more time to prepare their report. "The talks have been adjourned until Saturday," Ba said. "We haven't even finished the first point on the agenda concerning the humanitarian situation. We didn't even get round to talking about ways to improve it." UN deadline looms Diplomats have speculated that the rebels may be trying to draw out proceedings in Abuja until 30 August, when a UN Security Council deadline for Khartoum to prove it has made concrete steps to disarm the Janjawid and improve security in Darfur expires. However, Sudan's Agriculture Minister Majzoub al-Khalifa, the top government negotiator at the Abuja talks, said the expiry of the UN deadline would have no impact. "What is going to happen is that the deadline will pass and we are going to continue negotiations," the French news agency AFP quoted him as saying. "I think this thing (the Abuja peace talks) will finish in three or four or five days." But there may be more headaches ahead if and when the talks start to deal with the second item on the agreed agenda, security. The AU has suggested that while Khartoum disarms the Janjawid, AU troops will move rebel forces back to designated bases as a precursor to planned disarmament. Sudan gave tentative approval to the idea on Wednesday, but on Thursday the rebels made their opposition crystal clear. "No rebel movement can accept to disarm before a political settlement," Bahar Idriss Abu Garda, the JEM secretary-general, told Reuters by telephone from Darfur. "And we must be clear, not just after political agreement, but after it is achieved. Whether it be one year or however long it takes."