The news this week that peace talks are set to resume between the Sudan Government and rebels in the western province of Darfur has been greeted with caution by a representative of the Sudan Catholic Bishops? Conference.
?There will no result if the root political causes of the conflict are not addressed,? Fr Peter Loro, its Secretary General, told The Tablet on Tuesday from Khartoum. ?The Arab Janjaweed militia, which have been used by the government to cause instability in Darfur, must be disarmed.?
He expressed pessimism at the latest initiative because the government ?only seems to be addressing social issues, suggesting, for example, that tribes are fighting amongst themselves over water or land?.
Fr Loro recalled that in August 2004 Sudan?s Catholic bishops had spoken out against ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region and called on the United Nations and the International community to exert pressure to bear on their government not only to halt arming the Janjaweed but also to disarm them immediately and bring the perpetrators to justice.
The leaders of two rebel groups fighting in Darfur pledged last week to resume talks with the government, so paving the way for Tuesday?s announcement of a breakthrough by the African Union (AU) that both sides will restart negotiations in Nigeria in two weeks? time.
During a 13 May press conference at the Rome headquarters of the Community of Sant?Egidio, a lay Catholic group with experience in conflict mediation, representatives of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) promised ?to resume as soon as possible? and ?without preconditions? peace negotiations brokered by the AU which have been stalled since last December.
Both groups have been in revolt since 2003 against the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed militia which has been blamed for atrocities against Darfur?s black African population.
The conflict has left an estimated 180,000 people dead with at least two million people displaced. Aid agencies predict that the humanitarian crisis in Darfur is set to continue until late 2006 at the earliest.
Ellen Teague