French FM arrives in al-Khartoum in efforts to solve Darfour crisis
France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dominique de Villepin arrived yesterday in al-Khartoum in a visit that concentrates on the situation in Darfour, west Sudan. He held talks with his Sudanese counterpart Mustafa Othman Ismael before he had met with the Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir later in the day.
The French minister visited on Thursday the former French colony, Chad, the country which adjoins Darfour where hundreds of thousands of Sudanese resorted to flee the fighting in the region. De Villepin visited a camp for refugees and said after meeting with President of Chad Idris Deibi in Njamina that the conflict in west Sudan threatens the stability of the region.
Diplomats in Njamina said that weapons had arrived to the rebels in Darfour from Chad, despite the efforts of the authorities in Chad to prevent them. However, a well informed source in Chad said that weapons were also transported from the neighboring Central Africa Republic when the civil war started to ease down there.
The French diplomacy indicates that the successive wars in Africa feed smuggling of weapons and lead to the emergence of armed gangs moving from one country to another to sell its services to the highest bidder.
The president of Chad had made several mediation efforts between Khartoum and the rebels of Darfour, and he reached a cease-fire. However, fighting has been intensified since the failure of the third round of negotiations in December 2003.
In a related development, the Sudanese government proposed to the rebel leaders in Darfour area ensuring a safe passage for them to attend the general conference to be held in Khartoum in search of a settlement that would end their rebellion which started one year earlier.
The Sudanese minister of the interior, Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hussein, stressed that all representatives of Darfour tribes agreed to attend the conference which the government vowed to abide by its results, whatsoever they are.
The minister vowed that his country will ensure security for the leaders of the rebels taking part in the conference, including the leader of justice and equality movement, Khalil Ibrahim, noting that the rebel's leader can talk what he wants and that the government will ensure returning him back directly to where he wants.
Hussein denied figures published by the UN which talked about one million evacuees because of the conflict in Darfour and 100,000 refugees in the neighboring Chad lands. The Sudanese official said that the president of Chad notified him that there are 18,000 refugees only, noting the possibility that the others are people from Chad who belong to the same tribe or from nomadic Bedouins.