Sudan Seeks Arab Help in Avoiding Sanctions
Sun Aug 8, 2004 11:11 AM ET

By Tom Perry
CAIRO (Reuters) - Sudan sought Arab help Sunday to
head off possible sanctions threatened by the United
Nations if Khartoum fails to rein in marauding
militiamen accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing in
its western Darfur region.

Sudan has about three weeks left to show the U.N.
Security Council it is serious about disarming the
Janjaweed militia. Darfur rebels say Khartoum is
backing Janjaweed attacks to drive non-Arab villagers
from their homes.

Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said
Khartoum was seeking political support from Arab
ministers "which will lead to the halting of any
attempts to target Sudan or issuing of sanctions
against it."

The ministers were meeting at the Arab League in Cairo
on Sunday for emergency discussions on Darfur, where
the United Nations says fighting has killed 50,000,
displaced 1 million and left 2 million short of food
and medicine.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said the
Arabs were inclined toward helping Sudan avoid
sanctions. The League has said the sanctions threat
will not help resolve the humanitarian crisis.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said
Khartoum, which has agreed a plan with the United
Nations to tackle the crisis, was proving its
credibility.

The plan sets out steps to disarm the Janjaweed and
other outlawed groups, improve security in Darfur and
address the humanitarian crisis.

Jan Pronk, the U.N. secretary-general's special
representative to Sudan, told reporters in Cairo he
hoped the Arab League meeting would provide political
support for the plan's implementation.

But New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the Arab
League to put pressure on Sudan's government, not to
protect it.

"Allowing the Sudanese government to hide its crimes
behind Arab solidarity would be an insult to more than
1 million Muslim victims in Darfur," said Peter
Takirambudde, executive director of the group's Africa
division.

"The Arab League should stand behind the victims in
Darfur and take concrete steps to ensure that
civilians are protected from further crimes," he said
in a statement

PEACE TALKS
A long smoldering conflict between nomadic Arab
herders and African villagers erupted in early 2003
when two Darfur rebel groups took up arms against
Khartoum.

The Arab Janjaweed began their campaign of killing in
response, rights groups say.

The rebel Justice and Equality (JEM) movement said
Khartoum was seeking Arab League protection to carry
out "oppression and slaughter in Darfur." In a letter,
JEM called on the Arab League to be neutral and to
pressure Khartoum to give in to the will of the
international community.

The African Union said Sunday that Khartoum and the
two rebel groups, JEM and the Sudan Liberation Army
(SLA), had agreed to peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria on
Aug. 23.

But JEM Secretary-General Bahar Idriss Abu Garda told
Reuters neither JEM nor the SLA had been told of the
date and rebel leaders were due at a conference in
Germany on Aug. 23.

The AU said the group's chairman, Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo, would mediate the discussions
between Khartoum and the rebels, which would be a
continuation of a dialogue started in Addis Ababa on
July 15.

Those talks failed when the rebels set six conditions
for negotiations and Khartoum rejected them. The chief
demands included Sudan's demilitarization of Darfur
and an inquiry into genocide charges.

Sudan's Foreign Minister Ismail said the government
would participate in the talks without conditions.

The 53-member AU is proposing to send up to 2,000
troops to protect its cease-fire monitors in Darfur
and to serve as peacekeepers.

Sudan said Saturday it would permit African troops to
protect their monitors, but that its own troops would
handle peacekeeping.