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Rebels stay away from Darfur peace negotiations

Sudan declares a cease-fire, but a quick peace agreement is doubtful.

SIRTE, Libya - The Sudanese government committed to an immediate cease-fire in its Darfur region at the opening of peace talks on Saturday, but the expected announcement was not met by similar pledges from rebels, who largely boycotted the U.N.-brokered negotiations.

"The government of Sudan is proclaiming as of now a unilateral cease-fire in Darfur," said Nafie Ali Nafie, who was heading a Sudanese delegation to the talks in the Libyan coastal town of Sirte. "We shall not be the first ones to fire arms."

The U.S. special envoy for Sudan, Andrew Natsios, praised the government for its pledge but cautioned that there had been dozens of previous cease-fire declarations in Darfur broken by both government troops and rebel factions.

The talks are aimed at ending over four years of fighting that has killed more than 200,000 people in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

With no major rebel players, however, there was little hope that the Sirte talks would lead to a quick peace agreement. Mediators said the goal was to "create conditions" for effective peace talks to take place.

They said negotiations will also give a larger role to groups representing civilians, which have had little say so far.

"We are going to try very hard to create a framework for the talks," conference spokesman Ahmed Fauzi said, warning that it would be "a long process."

Immediately after the talks were announced, Adulwahid Elnur, the founder of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army, said he would boycott until the United Nations and African Union have deployed a joint force of 26,000 peacekeepers due in January.

Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of the rival Justice and Equality Movement, had initially agreed to the talks, but announced Friday that he was also boycotting because the United Nations was inviting smaller, less representative rebel factions to attend.

The Justice and Equality Movement and the main SLA groups say the smaller factions attending are controlled by the Sudanese government. The U.N. and African Union mediators say they tried to make the negotiations as inclusive as possible.

The chief U.N. mediator, special envoy Jan Eliasson, said the talks' first priorities were to reach an immediate cease-fire, discuss the return of Darfur refugees to their destroyed villages, and obtain financial compensations for war victims.

"I hope (the government) will show a generous and positive attitude toward this," Eliasson said.

In attendance were large international delegations that came to be briefed by the United Nations and African Union on what could be done to build a framework for talks.

"My presence here is a sign of a more active role for the Arab League" in helping resolve Darfur's conflict, league Secretary-General Amr Moussa said.

Egypt, the regional heavyweight, has been criticized for not putting more pressure on its southern neighbor to end the violence. But Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said his government would do its "best to help with a cease-fire and to encourage those who aren't here to attend."

Darfur's ethnic African rebels took up arms in 2003 against the Arab-dominated central Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of discrimination. The government is accused of retaliating with mass violence that has killed more than 200,000 civilians and created more than 2.5-million refugees, largely ethnic Africans.

The host of the talks, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, questioned what could be achieved in Sirte, saying the absence of the two main Darfur rebel leaders proved that international mediation efforts were failing.

"As long as they object to this conference, then there is no justification for the international community to intervene," Gadhafi said.

[Last modified October 28, 2007, 01:38:25]