Darfur Rebel Leader Demands Security Before Talks

A key Darfur rebel who has boycotted a meeting aimed at paving the way for peace talks said on Monday there was no hope for the process without security on the ground first.

Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, founder and chairman of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) had refused to attend a U.N.-African Union mediated meeting of rebels in the Tanzanian resort of Arusha aimed at forging a united position ahead of peace talks.

Nur, whose movement commands wide support among some 2.5 million Darfuris living in refugee camps, met Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade in Paris to try to seek a solution to the standoff that has hampered the talks. But he said fighting had to stop before progress could be made.

"We want security on the ground and then we can go to the next steps," Nur told reporters after the meeting. "We want conflict suspension, conflict resolution, then conflict transformation. The African Union started with the second step. This is why the process is going to collapse."

He dismissed the meeting in Arusha as a "creation of the Khartoum government" aimed at dividing the rebel movement. "They are not representative of Darfur people," he said.

His movement has demanded that UN troops should be deployed before any talks with the government in Khartoum.

"When they are on the ground, we will go anywhere," he said.

But Wade, who met Nur after a request from Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as well as overtures from Nur himself, said the SLA leader should join the talks.


NEGOTIATING TABLE

"I told him, you have to go to the discussions," he said. "To be a party, you have to be present. I have never seen a movement stay outside, come in the day before elections and get a good result. You have to participate in the process."

The Senegalese president said he was hopeful about progress after a Security Council resolution opening the way for a joint UN-African Union operation to stabilise Darfur.

"I'm optimistic because for the first time, Sudan agrees to the text of the United Nations resolution," he said.

International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in more than four years of fighting in Darfur.

Wade said the situation should improve once the international stabilisation force is in place by the end of the year.

"Things are changing. From the 1 October to 31 December, when the troops are there, conditions will be completely different from what they were before," Wade said.

He was sceptical about accusations from Khartoum that the French government had not pressed Nur hard enough to join the Arusha negotiations. "I don't think that official France has any interest in keeping a leader here to hinder the negotiations. That seems absurd," he said.

"But that there may be French people, NGOs or friends and advisers who didn't want Mr. Nur to take part in the discussions, well that exists. But official France has no interest in that."