September 18, 2004 - 5:45 AM

Darfur peace talks collapse

By Tume Ahemba

ABUJA (Reuters) - Sudan has blamed the United States for the failure of three
weeks of peace talks between Khartoum and Darfur rebels, but African Union
mediators have said negotiations will resume in October.

Although there was no agreement, the mediators said progress was made with
both sides on certain issues such as the need for greater humanitarian access to
more than a million people who have fled their homes in Sudan's vast western
Darfur region.

African Union special envoy Hamid Algabid said the talks would resume in
about one month.

"Statements made by senior officials of the USA poisoned the talks
environment and sent wrong signals to the rebels who immediately stiffened their
positions," Sudanese Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Najib Abdulwahab told
reporters on Friday.

The United States, pressing for U.N. Security Council action against the
Islamic government in Khartoum over what it calls genocide in Darfur, rejected
the charge.

The talks were designed to end a 19-month conflict in Darfur, scene of what
the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis in which 50,000
people have been killed.

The United States has accused Khartoum of backing Arab militias, known as
Janjaweed, who have been blamed for atrocities against African villagers in the
arid region.

The two rebel groups at the talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja said the
Sudanese government had refused to accept key demands, including disarmament of
the Janjaweed.

"We came here to sign an effective agreement, not just to sign ordinary
paper," said Sudan Liberation Movement rebel group chairman Abdel Wahed Mohamed
Ahmed al-Nur.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

"Obviously, any suggestion that somehow the United States' determination of
genocide was detrimental or had a negative impact (on) the talks we would reject
outright," U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters in
Washington.

"Those are the facts that we were able to determine and (genocide) was the
only conclusion ... It's up to the parties and the international community to
deal with that reality."

The U.N. Security Council called for a vote on Saturday on a U.S.-drafted
resolution that would consider sanctions on Sudan's oil industry if Khartoum does
not rein in the Arab militias.

The resolution says Sudan must also cooperate with an expanded African Union
monitoring mission in Darfur, where there have been years of skirmishes between
mainly African farmers and Arab nomads over land and scarce water resources.

Tensions in a Darfur refugee camp burst into violence when residents almost
beat to death a government official who tried to stop them speaking to a visiting
U.S. diplomat.

U.S. Agency for International Development administrator Andrew Natsios was
talking to tribal chiefs in the crowded, disease-ridden Mornei camp of more than
70,000 people in West Darfur state when they became agitated.

When a Khartoum official told them to "Calm down, shut up", men and boys
started to beat him with poles and hatchets.

The men chased the official until he collapsed on the ground, his head split
open in two places. He was still beaten.

Aid workers intervened to stop the violence. An African Union observer tried
to protect the man but was also hit.

Natsios, on a tour of Sudan, was evacuated to safety but said later: "There
is absolute rage in all the camps."

The U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, plans to visit
Sudan this weekend.

The Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement rebel
groups launched an uprising in February 2003.

The rebels accuse Khartoum of arming the Janjaweed. The government denies the
charge and says the Janjaweed are outlaws.

The 53-nation African Union has more than 80 observers in Darfur, but only to
monitor a ceasefire between the government and the rebels. Some 300 African Union
troops have been deployed to protect the monitors.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Dino Mahtani in
Lagos) ((Editing by Ralph Gowling)

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