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Deadline Passes Without Darfur Accord    [

    Divisions Cast Aside in Cry for Darfur
    By Sudarsan Raghavan
    The Washington Post

    Monday 01 May 2006

Mall rally highlights growing concern.

    Clutching signs that read "Never Again," thousands of protesters from across religious and political divides descended on the Mall yesterday along with celebrities and politicians to urge President Bush to take stronger measures to end the violence in Sudan's Darfur region that the U.S. has labeled genocide.

    They wore skullcaps, turbans, headscarves, yarmulkes, baseball hats and bandanas. There were pastors, rabbis, imams, youths from churches and youths from synagogues. They cried out phrases in Arabic and held signs in Hebrew. But on this day, they said, they didn't come out as Jews or Muslims, Christians or Sikhs, Republicans or Democrats.

    They came out as one, they said, to demand that the Bush administration place additional sanctions on Sudan and push harder for a multinational peacekeeping force to be sent to Darfur.

    By Washington standards, where protests often draw more than 100,000 people, yesterday's rally - estimated by organizers at between 10,000 and 15,000 - was not huge. Yet the Rally to Stop Genocide appeared to be distinctive for being one of the more diverse rallies the capital has seen in years. Most demonstrations attract fairly homogenous crowds, who often share political, religious and ethnic makeup, as was the case when Latinos dominated immigration protests last month.

    But yesterday's rally brought together people from dozens of backgrounds and affiliations, many of whom strongly disagree politically and ideologically on many issues. Judging from T-shirts and banners identifying the various groups, Jews appeared to be among the largest contingent of demonstrators.

    Among the speakers were Rabbi David Saperstein; Al Sharpton; Joe Madison, a liberal, black, radio talk-show host who has been pushing the issue; Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention; rap and fashion mogul Russell Simmons; and former basketball star Manute Bol, who is himself Sudanese.

    "This is one world, and we are all one family," said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of the Washington Archdiocese. "What happens to the people of Darfur happens to us."

    Speaking later before the crowd, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said: "Paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong.... If we care, the world will care."

    Lawrence B. Mogga, a former Sudanese diplomat who was forced to flee his country, stared at the crowd from his perch backstage and said: "I have never seen this type of organizational arrangement. I think this is the first of its kind."

    Yesterday's rally, along with protests planned in 17 other cities, was the largest public outcry for Darfur since the conflict began three years ago. It underscores growing public support across the nation to end the bloodshed, in much the same way activists in the 1980s launched a social justice campaign to end South Africa's apartheid system.

    "The world policy on Sudan is failing," said actor George Clooney, who recently visited the Chad-Sudan border, where hundreds of thousands of Darfuris live in refugee camps. "If we turn our heads and look away and hope it will all go away, then they will, and an entire generation will die."

    His father, Nick Clooney, a veteran journalist, said: "We didn't stop the Holocaust. We didn't stop Cambodia. We didn't stop Rwanda. But this one, we can stop."

    In recent months, universities, states and municipalities have divested some of their investments from companies doing business with Sudan. Last month, Providence, R.I., became the first city to stop investing in Sudan. There are disinvestment campaigns underway at the University of Maryland and the University of Virginia. And Maryland is considering a formal request by Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele (R) to have the state's pension plan divest billions of dollars from firms with ties to Sudan.

    The Darfur conflict began in February 2003, when mostly non-Arab rebels launched attacks seeking greater political autonomy. Sudan's Arab-dominated Islamist government, in response, dispatched troops and pro-government Arab militias known as the Janjaweed to quell the uprising. The militias embarked on a campaign of terror, killing and raping civilians mostly from non-Arab ethnic groups, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their villages. In 2004, the United States labeled the atrocities as genocide.

    At about the same time, the villagers, who like their attackers are mostly Muslim, got an unlikely ally. American Jewish groups were growing alarmed by the atrocities. They drew parallels to the Holocaust and how the world remained silent as Jews were killed. Many also said they were disturbed by the world's failure to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. They were determined not to let it happen again and soon launched the Save Darfur Coalition.

    The coalition has grown into a broad-based alliance of more ?han 160 faith-based groups that include religious and secular Jews, evangelical Christians, Catholics, Muslims, human rights organizations, Arab groups, black churches and Buddhists.

    Yesterday, demonstrators came from as far away as Maine and as near as Tenleytown. More than 200 buses, from as many as 41 states, arrived in the District. They wore T-shirts with slogans like "Not on Our Watch" and "Save Darfur."

    As the rally began, the crowd sang a message to the children of Darfur:

    "You are not alone."

    "You are not alone."

    The rally comes as the humanitarian situation is worsening, the United Nations and human rights groups say. At least 200,000 have died and 2.5 million, most of them non-Arabs, have fled to refugee camps inside Darfur or to neighboring Chad, including 60,000 in the last month, according to the United Nations. U.S. and international diplomatic and political efforts have so far failed to stop the violence.

    President Bush, who met with Darfur advocates at the White House on Friday, praised the protesters and said the United States is serious about solving the problem.

    But protesters said he needs to do more.

    The urgency, as well as a sense of the past, was not lost on many of the speakers yesterday.

    The speakers' podium was thick with the sweep of history, as survivors of the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and ethnic conflict in Bosnia drew parallels to Darfur.

    As the rally's first speaker, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel drew a direct comparison to his own suffering in Nazi concentration camps.

    "As a Jew, I'm here because when we needed people to help us, nobody came," Wiesel, the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner, told the applauding crowd. "Therefore, we're here."

    Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan hotel manager who is credited with saving 1,200 Rwandans from slaughter, spoke later.

    "Twelve years ago, a militia was slaughtering innocent civilians in cities and towns in Rwanda," said Rusesabagina, whose story was depicted in the movie "Hotel Rwanda."

    "As Rwanda has been abandoned, Darfur is also abandoned," he said. "The world is still standing by when a genocide was taking place."

    Several speakers urged universities and governments to divest their assets from Sudan.

    Younis Tagelalla, 40, was among a small contingent of immigrants from Darfur. He looked around in awe at the sea of black, white and brown faces showing their support for his homeland.

    When he lived in Sudan, he said, he was told that Jews were the enemies of Muslims.

    Yesterday, he knew different.

    "This is not about religion. This is about saving humanity," said Tagelalla, 40, a cabdriver, who got on a bus from New York that was funded by a Jewish group.

    "The whole world is behind us. We are so grateful."

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    Staff writers Lisa Rein, Karlyn Barker, Hamil R. Harris and Aruna Jain contributed to this report.

 

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    Deadline Passes Without Darfur Accord
    By Lydia Polgreen and Joel Brinkley
    The New York Times

    Monday 01 May 2006

    Khartoum, Sudan - Sudan's government offered Sunday to accept a potentially historic Darfur peace agreement, but two of Darfur's three main rebel groups raised last-minute objections that left the negotiations mired in confusion as a midnight deadline passed. Mediators agreed to extend the talks for 48 hours at the request of the United States.

    It was unclear early Monday whether the extension in the feverish negotiations, supervised by the African Union at talks in Abuja, Nigeria, made it more or less likely that a deal could be reached. The talks are the most intensive yet in an effort to end the strife in Darfur, the vast region of western Sudan that is the site of what the United Nations has called the world's worst refugee crisis and what the Bush administration calls genocide.

    The uncertain outcome of the negotiations came as thousands of people rallied in Washington, calling on the Bush administration to do more to help end the Darfur conflict. [Page A16.]

    By early Monday morning, the mediation group at the talks agreed to extend them until midnight Tuesday at the request of Cameron Hume, the chargé d'affaires at the United States Embassy in Khartoum, who said that significant progress had been made and that more time might allow an agreement to emerge, according to Noureddine Mezni, a spokesman for the African Union negotiators.

    "He asked if we can give 48 hours to the parties to allow them to bridge the gap on some issues, regarding especially the reintegration and the disarmament, plus some other issues on wealth sharing and power sharing," Mr. Mezni said. "His request was approved."

    Progress in the talks was thrown into doubt late Sunday when Seif Haroun, a spokesman for one of the rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army, told reporters in Abuja, "If the proposal does not include all our demands, we will not sign."

    At least 200,000 people have been killed and 2 million driven from their homes since 2003 in the chaotic ethnic and political conflict in Darfur, which has pitted a rebel insurgency against the Arab-dominated central government in Khartoum and its proxy tribal militias known as the janjaweed, who are fearsome marauders considered responsible for much of the killing. The strife has spilled into neighboring Chad and threatened to escalate the crisis further.

    The United States has placed nearly all of its hopes for a resolution of the crisis on the Abuja peace talks, and a failure there would leave the Bush administration without a viable option to end the violence in the foreseeable future.

    In Washington, Robert B. Zoellick, the deputy secretary of state and the Bush administration's point man on Sudan policy, said in an interview that the parties had narrowed the number of issues still under debate.

    "I am encouraged, but it is not done yet," he said. African Union officials had said they expected at least a partial breakthrough, which could allow further talks.

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking Sunday morning on ABC News, noted that "the United States has been one of the most active states" in working to resolve the crisis.

    "Let me just say," she added, "the president has passion about this issue."

    Mr. Zoellick, who spent much of Sunday evening conferring by telephone with American diplomats and negotiators in Abuja, said he was not terribly concerned that some of the smaller rebel factions had rejected the proposed agreement, saying these groups would have to come along if the largest faction of the Sudanese Liberation Movement, led by Minni Arcua Minnawi, did eventually agree.

    Mr. Minnawi "is trying to be serious about this," Mr. Zoellick said, "with the understanding that there are still some serious difficulties, serious issues, to work through."

    The largest area of disagreement, he said, centered on "the demobilization of both sides." The rebels and the government are quite wary of each other. But Mr. Zoellick said Mr. Minnawi and his aides had spent four hours on Sunday evening discussing demobilization with Mr. Hume, the chargé d'affaires in Khartoum.

    Sudanese government officials here said Sunday they would accept the peace plan, but their agreement came only after it became apparent that at least some of the rebels would balk.

    The proposed agreement would allow for some power and wealth sharing with political groups aligned with the rebel movements that have fought in the insurgency since 2003.

    "We have some reservations to the initial draft, but we have submitted our acceptance to the African Union," said Jamal Ibrahim, a government spokesman in Khartoum.

    Some rebel leaders say the proposed deal fell short of their demands. The agreement does not give the Darfur groups the vice presidency they demanded, and does not create a single state out of the three states in Darfur, something Darfur political and militant groups say would help reduce the region's powerlessness and marginalization.

    The Darfur groups and the Sudanese government have been under enormous pressure to reach an agreement, to end the squabbling that has dominated previous negotiations. The African Union presented both parties with a draft agreement on Tuesday.

    Should the talks fail, it is unclear what the next step might be. Ms. Rice and other officials have talked about stationing as many as 20,000 United Nations peacekeeping troops in Darfur, to replace the African Union force of 7,000 that has tried unsuccessfully to keep the peace in Darfur over the past year.

    But Sudan has refused to allow any U.N. force in without a signed peace agreement, and few countries have volunteered to provide troops for the mission, even if permission were granted. The Bush administration seems unwilling to proceed with this venture without permission from Sudan.

    Recognizing that, perhaps, Ms. Rice urged other countries to get involved.

    "We need more help from the international community," she said on CNN. "We need more help, frankly, from China and Russia, which I think have to look at what is going on there and ask what more they can do." Both Russia and China have significant business interests in Sudan and have often been defenders of Sudan at the United Nations and elsewhere.

    Even if all the parties do finally reach agreement, senior officials and diplomats said they had serious doubts about the likelihood that it would quickly end the violence. The proposed treaty calls on the Sudanese government to disarm the janjaweed militias. But the United States and other nations have been urging the Sudanese government to disarm the militias for almost three years, to no effect.

    Mr. Zoellick said: "If they reach an accord, it is in the Sudanese government's interest to respect it. I think the janjaweed have become a political liability for them now."

    What is more, almost everyone involved acknowledges that a cease-fire would have to be enforced. But the African Union forces in Darfur have been unable to prevent violations of numerous cease-fires that have been declared over the previous months.

    Some United Nations officials urged the African Union mediators to delay the start of any new cease-fire until after the African Union's force could be strengthened and its armaments and intelligence gathering capabilities improved. But the African Union did not accept that idea, and Mr. Zoellick said he did not favor it.

    Still, he added, acknowledging the problem, "if they do reach a peace accord, it will have to be complemented by actions on the ground."

    The rebel movements have portrayed themselves as fighters for minority rights against a powerful central government that discriminates against non-Arab tribes, but as the conflict has dragged on and the movements have split into rival factions that now battle among themselves for territory, they have also been criticized for their tactics.

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    Lydia Polgreen reported from Khartoum for this article, and Joel Brinkley from Washington.