Darfur peace talks will be a "moment of truth" to stop the chaotic violence plaguing Sudan's west, UN envoy Jan Eliasson said on Thursday. He urged all of the more than a dozen fractured Darfur rebel factions to attend the talks due to start in Libya on October 27 and said an urgent ceasefire would be the priority.
"The first very concrete step ... is that we will go for and hopefully achieve a credible cessation of hostilities," Eliasson told reporters in Khartoum, adding that invites to most rebel groups would be sent for the first stage of talks. "I find the situation on the ground ... deeply alarming. The military escalation is a great source of concern."
Some rebel leaders have said they will not go unless only one delegation from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and one from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) talks with Khartoum. But with more than a dozen factions emerging since last year's peace deal, signed by only group, that is unlikely to happen.
Darfur envoy Eliasson said preconditions were dangerous. "To miss this opportunity is a tragedy - this is the moment of truth," he said. "Haven't we seen enough violence and hopelessness? Don't we see what is happening to the social fabric of Darfur ... torn apart completely - is this what we want to perpetuate?"
In a report made public on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "extremely concerned" about the "unacceptable" violence in the vast region, which he said was "not contributing to an atmosphere conducive to the peace talks".
He said the attack on the AU peacekeepers "confirms that the ... force which will be deployed to Darfur must be sufficiently robust to defend itself from spoilers and protect civilians from attack". A 26,000-strong AU-UN peacekeeping force is planned. Mostly non-Arabs took up arms in early 2003 accusing Khartoum of neglect.