Darfur rebel factions gather for unity talks

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) - Darfur's fractious rebel groups yesterday gathered for talks to hammer out a united front, following UN approval of a beefed up peacekeeping mission in the Sudanese region.

Sponsored by the African Union and United Nations, the meeting in the Tanzanian town of Arusha will seek to define a common stance among the rebels for a fresh round of peace negotiations with the Sudanese government.

When asked when final settlement talks could take place, the African Union's top mediator on Darfur Salim Ahmed Salim told AFP: "Within the next two months."

When the deadly conflict erupted in Darfur in February 2003, the uprising against the central authority in Khartoum was spearheaded by one group.

But now diplomats face the daunting task of finding common ground among a dozen rebel factions.

"Our objective is to find a common position. You cannot have negotiations with on the one hand, the Khartoum government, and seven, eight or nine rebel groups on the other," Salim said.

His UN counterpart Jan Eliasson told AFP it was crucial to rapidly capitalise on Tuesday's Security Council decision to deploy 26,000 AU-UN peacekeepers in the region to boost the political process.

"I fear a very dangerous situation in the camps" of displaced people if there is no rapid progress on the political front, he said.

"It will take some time before all the peacekeepers are deployed. The political process is now at a crucial stage," he said.

After a day of preliminary meetings, delegates gathered yesterday but without the Sudan Liberation Movement of Abdel Wahid Mohammed Nur, the founding father of the rebellion and a member of Darfur's largest tribe.

"We regret that Abdel Wahid Nur is not here. We hope that with this decision, he is not excluding himself from the final negotiations we are planning," Eliasson said.

Nur's faction contests the legitimacy of the many splinter rebel groups and also argues crunch talks with the government should only be considered once the new "hybrid force" of UN and AU peacekeepers is deployed.

"The more you recognise individuals as faction leaders by inviting them to talks like those in Arusha, the more factions there will be, and consequently disorder on the ground," his spokesman Yahia Bolad told AFP.

Eliasson nevertheless described the Arusha meeting as "highly representative and the widest group of rebels ever assembled."

A Darfur peace deal was reached with the Khartoum regime in Abuja in May 2006 but it was only endorsed by one of three negotiating rebel groups.

Violence has since spiralled and splinter factions have flourished.