Tensions intensify even as Sudan's warring groups inch closer to peace, writes Gamal Nkrumah Peace talks being held in the Nigerian capital Abuja between the Sudanese government and the armed opposition groups from Darfur resumed on Monday only to grind to an abrupt halt on Tuesday. The Sudanese government offered a federal solution to the Darfur crisis, but the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the two main armed opposition groups in the Darfur region, threatened to suspend the talks indefinitely if the Sudanese government did not halt its offensive against the SLA and JEM. "We are suspending the talks until the situation has changed and there is a clear commitment that the Sudanese government will stop the offensive," SLA spokesperson Bahr Ibrahim told reporters in Abuja. The SLA and JEM warn that there has been little progress on the ground. Fighting between the two sides has intensified recently, and following the death of two humanitarian relief workers, aid agencies are threatening to halt emergency operations. "The government is not serious about seeking peace in Darfur," Ali Al-Hajj, secretary-general of the opposition Islamist Popular Congress Party (PCP), once closely aligned with the Sudanese government, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Now based in Bonn, Germany, Al-Haj is the effective leader of the PCP abroad. He said that the Sudanese government recently rounded up 279 people from Darfur in Khartoum -- both army officers and civilians. "The Sudanese authorities are clamping down on people from Darfur in the capital. They claim that these people were plotting to overthrow the Sudanese government. But these are trumped up charges," Al-Hajj said. SLA and JEM leaders in Abuja warned that they felt the Sudanese government was intentionally delaying the peace process. They complained that Khartoum seemed in no hurry to reach a comprehensive peace deal with them. Concurring, Al-Hajj acknowledged that the armed opposition groups in Darfur have legitimate grievances against the Sudanese authorities. He added that the people of Darfur are further incensed because their leaders are being targeted in a witchhunt. The group of alleged conspirators are due to appear in court today, Thursday 16 December. "Many people from Darfur have lost relatives in the war and have become thoroughly alienated from the authorities in Khartoum," Al-Hajj explained. "Only three of those standing trial are members of the PCP, the rest are all from Darfur." Among those standing trial in absentia are Al-Haj Adam Youssef, the former Sudanese minister of agriculture, who hails from Darfur. He fled Sudan and is now believed to be in exile in neighbouring Eritrea. Meanwhile, Sudan's neighbours are stepping up their efforts to bring peace to Darfur. A 4,500-strong African Union force has been deployed in the battle-ridden region. But, as United Nations special envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk noted recently, the AU force is hopelessly inadequate to keep the peace. More troops are needed. Even though matters look grim in the west of Sudan, a rosier picture is being painted in the south of the country. Peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) -- the country's most powerful and influential armed opposition group -- resumed last week in Kenya. The southern Sudanese-based SPLA and the Islamist government in Khartoum have pledged to sign a final and comprehensive peace deal before the end of the year. Sudanese Vice-President Ali Othman Mohamed Taha flew to Kenya to head the government delegation, accompanied by three cabinet ministers and close associates of President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir -- Minister of Justice Ali Mohamed Othman, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Abdul-Baset Seiderat, and Presidential Adviser Badriya Soleiman. The three top-level officials are in Kenya to help agree the wording of the comprehensive peace deal. While the chances of the final deal being clinched before Christmas now seem slim, there is a good chance that the deal will be concluded before the New Year. The two sides are under intense pressure to end the conflict in southern Sudan by the deadline set. The UN estimates that Africa's longest-running conflict has cost the lives of more than two million Sudanese, and rendered some four million people homeless. Meanwhile in Cairo, members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Sudan's largest umbrella opposition organisation, which groups together mainly northern Sudanese political parties and the SPLA, are preparing for talks with the government. "We are still waiting for the government to fulfill its pledges," Farouk Abu Eissa, former head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union and official spokesman for the NDA told the Weekly. Abu Eissa also stressed that a complete overhaul of the Sudanese army and security apparatus is a prerequisite for radical political reform in Sudan. He also said that the independence of the judiciary and its complete separation from the executive branch of the state is of vital importance. No date has been set for the Cairo peace talks, but Abu Eissa believes that early January is a likely time for them to kick off.
