Darfur rebel factions meeting in Tanzania have reached a common negotiating position for final peace talks with the Sudanese government which they want to hold within three months, international mediators said on Monday.
The rebel factions had been meeting at a luxury resort in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha to try and bury past differences over the leadership and direction of the vast western region of Sudan.
UN envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson said the groups reached "a common platform" for negotiations, encompassing power and wealth sharing, security, land and humanitarian issues. "They ... recommended that final talks should be held between two to three months from now," Eliasson told the closing session of the four-day meeting organised by the United Nations and the African Union (AU). The rebels gave few details, saying several groups would stay in Arusha to work them out.
There was no immediate reaction from Khartoum. The government has said it was ready to talk to the rebels, though not to substantially change what was already agreed in a May 2006 peace deal with one rebel faction.
International experts estimate 200,000 people have died in the four-year conflict since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglecting Darfur. The government mobilised mostly Arab militias to quell the revolt.
Since the 2006 peace deal, insurgents have split into more than a dozen groups with myriad demands. Analysts have said the Arusha meeting's chance of success was hampered by the absence of some important rebel figures, but nonetheless succeeded in boosting unity.
"The key ... is who they are going to send to negotiations to represent them all," International Crisis Group analyst Hannah Stogdon told Reuters. "If they can agree on that publicly, that is a good sign." Diplomats said the presence of field commanders helped bridge a political-military divide in the movements.
"There was more consultation among themselves than with us," AU special envoy to Darfur Salim Ahmed Salim told reporters. The rebels meeting in Tanzania also decided to keep the door open for those who were invited but did not participate to join a common platform, he said.
Khartoum accused Paris of failing to encourage one prominent leader living in France, Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, to attend. He has only a few troops, but commands huge support among 2.5 million Darfuris forced into refugee camps. Analysts say his blessing is essential to the success of any peace deal.
"We want to send a message to our brother Abdel Wahed. We are in need of his participation. We have agreed to meet him anywhere," SLA commander Jar el-Neby told Reuters in Arusha. The large Sudan Liberation Army-Unity faction eventually relented on its refusal to participate in the talks in protest at the virtual imprisonment of its humanitarian co-ordinator, Suleiman Jamous, in a UN hospital near Darfur.
Salim and Eliasson said they were making efforts to get him freed in talks with Khartoum due to start on Tuesday. Speaking to Reuters, Khalil Abdallah from the new umbrella United Front for Liberation and Development urged foreign powers to pressure the government to negotiate seriously.
"This regime is used to going back on agreements and not implementing deals. The international community has to be serious and put real pressure on the government," he said.
Eliasson and Salim now have to convince Khartoum to agree to negotiate the points specified by the rebels. The government has said it will not reopen the deal signed last year, but would only consider making additions to it.
Eliasson said rebel-government talks could be held in any of the regional nations trying to mediate the conflict or in any other country that the mediation considers suitable. The venue and timing would be taken up with Sudan, he said.
The rebels agreed to cease fire if Sudan also agreed to do so, he said. They would also guarantee access for aid agencies, refrain from attacking AU peacekeepers, and cooperate with a planned 26,000-strong AU-UN peacekeeping force approved by the Security Council in New York last week.
An official from the SLA led by Minni Arcua Minnawi said on Monday that unknown armed men had attacked some of Minnawi's forces in Darfur, killing four and injuring five.