John Kaninda
25 July 2007
Johannesburg — SA COULD be a potential venue for peace talks should the government of Sudan and rebels from that country's restive western province of Darfur decide to revive the stalled Abuja agreement (DPA), according to Sayed El-Khatib, director-general of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Khartoum.
El-Khatib, who also acts as an adviser to Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, was addressing a seminar on Monday at the Centre for International Political Studies at the University of Pretoria.
Representatives from the Sudanese government and a faction of the insurgent Sudan Liberation Army led by Minni Arkou Minawi (SLA/MM) signed a peace agreement on May 5 last year , which has been opposed by the rest of the rebel movements that decided not to be part of the process.
The SLA faction of Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nur (SLA/AW) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) refused to sign. Wahid demanded more direct SLA participation in implementation of security arrangements and was also dissatisfied with the DPA's provisions for political representation and a victim's compensation fund.
El-Khatib believes that Nigeria was not the right place to negotiate a peace agreement as west African leaders did not look at the Darfur issue "with the same detachment as, for instance, Europeans would have".
"Most of the tribes in Darfur are represented all over west Africa," he said. "In this case, there might be ideas vented around the table which were not conducive to a speedy conclusions of the negotiations."
El-Khatib also believes that it is important that any venue for the talks be provided by a country that would be "content with providing the place and let the parties reach a Sudanese solution to a Sudanese problem".
He said SA was "one of the neutral options we are looking at".
"We (the Sudanese government) accept foreign involvement in the Darfur talks as long as such involvement does not alter the substance of the talks."
El-Khatib also said the South African government had been asked informally to host the talks .
On Saturday, the Tanzanian Arusha Times reported that the Darfur rebels who failed to sign a peace agreement in Abuja, Nigeria, last year were scheduled to meet there early next month.
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