US special envoy vows to step up dialogue to end Darfur conflict

UNITED NATIONS, Friday

The US special envoy to Sudan has vowed to step up engagement with both Khartoum and rebels to help bring peace to Darfur, a strategy the commanding peacekeeper says has already won over some of the rebels.

The results of a US government policy review on Sudan are expected to be released later this month. One of the key elements of the review is how to end the crisis in Darfur where the UN says up to 300,000 people have died since 2003, compared to Khartoum’s official death toll of 10,000.

His priorities

President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force General Scott Gration, said in an interview with Reuters yesterday his priorities include bringing peace to Darfur and ending the humanitarian crisis in the remote and vast region of western Sudan.

He also wants to ensure that a fragile 2005 peace agreement that ended a 22-year civil war between Sudan’s Muslim North and mostly Christian South is fully implemented and put an end to what he said was Sudan’s “proxy war” with neighbouring Chad.

Gration said he was working hard “to unify the (Darfur) rebels so that there is a spokesman for that group.” He is also trying to unify the Darfur diaspora and refugee communities so that they can play a role in peace talks in Doha.

UN officials have repeatedly warned that the fragmentation of rebel movements in Darfur into smaller groups is one of the reasons the peace process has stalled.

General Martin Luther Agwai, outgoing commander of the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (Unamid), told reporters at UN headquarters that Gration’s engagement with rebels has already yielded positive results.

Rebel groups that had previously placed difficult conditions on their attendance at peace talks “have now decided to start coming to the table to negotiate and talk,” he said.

To ease tensions between Sudan and Chad, and to ensure the 2005 north-south peace agreement (CPA) is implemented, Gration said it was vital to talk with the Janjaweed – Arab militiamen backed by Khartoum – and the Sudanese and other governments.

To achieve this, he said, “it takes dialogue with the rebels, it takes dialogue with ... leaders in the region and it certainly takes dialogue with the government of Sudan.”

Welcome change

Some analysts say Gration is focusing more on engagement with Khartoum and the rebels than Richard Williamson, his predecessor under George W. Bush. Fabienne Hara of the International Crisis Group said it was a “welcome change.”

Agwai said the security situation in Darfur had improved somewhat and that far fewer people were dying each month in the refugee camps. But he said easing US sanctions against Sudan would “help a lot in the overall peace process in Darfur.” Gration said he opposed relaxing US sanctions against the government of Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his military.