Darfur Peace Talks Will Fail, Says Rebel Leader
PARIS - Darfur peace talks due to begin today will fail and ultimately prolong the four-year conflict, the region’s most influential rebel leader has predicted on the eve of the UN-brokered talks.
Abdul Wahid al-Nur, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), has called on his followers not to attend the talks in the Libyan coastal town of Sirte, and shrugged off a UN threat to impose sanctions on groups “impeding” the conference.
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“There can be no more sanctions on my people who have been raped or killed or had their houses burned down and driven into refugee camps,” Mr Nur told the Guardian in Paris, his home in exile for the past year. “Why is the international community putting pressure on the victim rather than putting pressure on the criminal regime? I am really confused. It is really very sad.”
Mr Nur, a 39-year-old former lawyer, objects to the choice of Libya as a venue, arguing that Muammar Gadafy is too close to Khartoum to be an honest broker. He also points to a long line of flouted ceasefires, and insists that any truce agreed in Sirte (expected in the first few days of the talks) without the presence of a muscular international force to enforce it, is worse than useless. “This will give the government legitimacy to kill people, to rape,” he said. “The process that is going on is not a real peace. It is prolonging the suffering of our people and complicating the problem of Darfur.”
A UN and African Union force of 20,000 troops and 6,000 police is supposed to move into position over the next few months but the deployment is being held up by the failure of any UN member country so far to contribute attack helicopters, and Khartoum’s refusal to accept non-African units. Without a significant mobile force, observers say it will be impossible to monitor a ceasefire. Another broad rebel coalition, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), and an important splinter group, SLA-Unity, also confirmed their intention not to attend the Sirte negotiations. Instead, mediators from the UN and AU are flying in representatives of some SLM and Jem splinter groups together with tribal elders, the heads of refugee groups and other civic groups.
Mr Nur’s absence may devalue the talks. Diplomats say he has lost the loyalty of some field commanders but accept that he retains the following of much of the province’s dominant Fur tribe.
Mediators hope if they can maintain the momentum of the talks, some of the absent rebels will be forced to join in or risk losing support. They also hope that the 2.5 million people in the refugee camps will tire of Mr Nur’s adamant stand.
“There is a feeling that his support is a mile wide but an inch deep,” one diplomat involved in the talks said.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said of Mr Nur recently: “What I fear, because I like Abdul Wahid, is that the people around him will represent everyone and he will end up representing no one. I have told him that 10,000 times.”
The run-up to the talks has been a test of wills between the mediators and Mr Nur but he said he is not worried by attempts to peel away his supporters.
“Leadership will not be created in Libya or by the international community. Leadership is the recognition by the people, on the ground,” Mr Nur said. “I am not a criminal. I am not a saboteur of peace. Real peace will not be [made] in Libya and it will not be [made by] this process.”
Gordon Brown has much at stake in the talks as he made Darfur a priority on entering Downing Street and helped push through the UN resolution in July establishing the UN-AU force. The UK will be represented at Sirte by the UK special representative to Sudan, Michael O’Neill.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
Want to learn what’s really happening in Darfur, the pretty much rest of Sudan, the Congo, and other African countries, certainly including Rwanda? If yes, then refer to Keith Harmon Snow, www.AllThingsPass.com , and to the oil and energy index at www.globalresearch.ca , and the sub-saharan index.
UN-AU in Darfur? It’s not for the sake of the local people(s); if it was, then we’d have a very unique case. The UN can’t be trusted anywhere. It’s not that there’s no good at all in the UN; it’s that the good there is is NOT applied.
The UNGA votes very well ….
We have the UNSC and state members usually oppose U.S. vetoes, which pretty much always is the way to go, but the vetoes somehow are granted priority, treated as superior, and they’re always criminal, those vetoes.
Intl Law and Conventions are great, but that really is only on paper, nothing more or better; therefore, the nicety is [WORTHLESS].
Hell can pretend to be for peace, justice, etc., human rights, so for something like the UN Charter, and which we have hell-bound Bush and Cheney often doing; but all while really being [totally] opposed and acting, as covertly as possible, in contrary ways. Hell will pretend en masse, but will never be about anything other than Hell.
The UN and AU in Darfur is BAD, very bad news, NOT good at all; and Snow explains very, exhaustively (enough) well. Others contribute, but he makes Africa his main focus and has written a lot for informing us. If he did like most others, then we’d barely know what’s going on in Africa; but he is different and places much focus on what’s going on and has long been going on in Africa.
He has done work on other regions, such as Afghanistan, f.e., but sure does seem to have Africa as his main focus; and it is important, very, that someone or some people do as he’s doing. If we have multiple serious fires, then we don’t want everyone pointing to only and the same one, fire; we want ALL to be acted upon.
Following what pretty much ALL news media report on, we’d have like NOTHING for Africa. Keith Snow takes care of repairing that hellish situation very well.
People who don’t possess the capability of realising that multiple and disparate serious problems are all happening at the same time may well become dizzied, and this world’s problems are definitely dizzying; but we need to realise what the … hell is going on, and Africa is a very serious part of all of what we need to learn about, and act upon, for.
Evil is trying to take over the whole world, planet, not just one part, but the whole; and only we can stop it.
“Blood, sweat and tears: Living stigmatics”, by Rosalba O’Brien and Enzo Daedro, Oct. 2002,
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/224/blood_sweat_and_tears_living_stigmatics.html
If that direct url gets chopped for some odd reason, then the article is at ForteanTimes.com, and just search for “Blood, sweat and tears”, or stigmatics.
Quote: “…
Gladys’ visions have not been limited to the Virgin Mary; Gladys wrote that she could often smell roses and incense, and that Jesus himself has appeared to her over 60 times. Dressed in a white robe, his messages differ from his mother’s (“Evil has invaded the Earth and darkness wishes to cover all”). …
…”
Note, ‘white robes’, NOT ‘white light’, the latter of which is a sign of not good, but Evil, deception. ‘White robes’ is okay, as long as the rest of what’s seen is not all white, for even Hell can do that. Heaven, otoh, will always present itself in ways that are [humanly] understandable, so not everything will be white. The robes were white, not Jesus himself.
Anyway, I don’t know if Gladys’ vision was real or not, and personally believe that she was not joking around, but this happened in the early or mid-1980s, which is of IMPORTANCE, imo.
Evil having invaded, we have no reason at all to doubt. That the “progress” has evolved, we have no doubt. NOW, IT IS TIME TO STOP the spread and continuation.
If we read enough, and not just from bla bla news media, but from sources like those I try to refer people to, then we cannot but SEE that Evil has not only invaded and been working on spreading, but we have no choice; either we stand opposed, or else Evil is granted the “win”.
Meanwhile, we have musicians, etc., doing all their “nice” works, and doing the world absolutely NO good at all. We NEED real, strong-hearted people; not just a bunch more du-fouses who are only out to make money off of other peoples’ sufferings. It only provides “feel good” bs that does this world absolutely no good and distracts people from realising that they instead need to ACT. We need no more f*cking stupid lulla-bye story songs, etc.; WE NEED ACTION.
To hell with all of the musicians who contribute to nothing other than dumbing down the masses; screw, burn their hellbent bank accounts, let the bastards starve, and let’s get with real ACTION.
That means that there’s most likely NO real election in the U.S. in Nov. 2008; because there’ll surely be no candidate worthy of voting for, they’ll surely all be hellbent criminal.
Are you ready to not cast your stupid f*cking vote; or are you going to vote for another schmuck Hell politician?
NO vote from ME!
We stand together or apart, and I don’t have a problem with apart; it’s been my way MOST of my life anyway, so will be nice and comfy at home, with not voting.
Want my vote? Then you best get your f*cking sh*t straight; else streets is where we need to take … matters.
Forget the bla bla bla on Darfur, etc.; SEE Keith Snow! Do that, else have no respectable word. I don’t care if people disagree with him, as long as they serously enough read what he has to report to us. Disagree with him after having doen the homework, first, and we’ll procede from there; don’t read what he reports, and you have nothing to say at all, unless you wish to push lies that you may or may not even be aware of being lies.
Get REAL folks.
I like the UN Charter, I like the way the UNGA, usually anyway, votes, but haven’t you noticed that the UN gives these NO power; like at all!
I’m for the UN Charter and GA, but to hell with the SC. I don’t have a problem with Russia and China being members of the SC; I have a problem with the damn SC, point final, overall. It is BS! Like the U.S. presidency, f.e.
U.S. voters do NOT decide who’s elected, YA KNOW! No we do NOT; although I never voted, there never being, so far, any candidates I could morally support. That’s the “theoretical” reason; the real one being that U.S. politics are so hellbent corrupt and have been for so long, that I did not pay attention to elections; being from streets mind, living according to my norms. The govt has NOTHING to offer us, so why would I pay attention; unless it’d be to burn down the White House again, but it’s not made of wood.
Our demands should be to get the US and Europeans OUT OF AFRICA, and not more into doing yet more interventions of any sort on this continent. No matter how they try to camouflage it with sweet rhetoric, the people demanding to ’save Darfur’ are really a movement to justify supporting US imperialism in Africa.