U.S. and European Media

September 19, 2023

Reuters: Ban Reveals Talk With Sudan on War Crimes Suspects. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon disclosed on Tuesday he had raised with Sudan's president the Khartoum government's refusal to hand over two suspected Darfur war criminals to an international court. "I raised this issue with President (Omar Hassan) Bashir more than once in a private conversation," Ban, who visited Sudan earlier this month, told a news conference. "As my meeting was done in private conversation, I should prefer not to disclose all the details," he said. "But ... I will continue to raise and discuss this matter." The Hague-based International Criminal Court in May charged Ahmad Harun with organizing, funding and arming militia to stop rebels from attacking the Sudanese army. The militia then wiped out villages and are now fighting each other over the spoils. Harun is now the minister of state for humanitarian affairs, which ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo says is akin to putting the man in charge of a crisis he helped foment. "For a certain period, certain occasions, there are certain issues which need to be kept confidential for the purpose of promoting and making progress on those issues," Ban said.

Agence France Presse: Darfur rebels fine-tune position ahead of key meeting. Rebel groups from Sudan's volatile Darfur region gathered Wednesday in the Chadian capital Ndjamena to forge a common position ahead of next month's peace talks with the Khartoum regime. Five rebel factions that did not sign up to a May 2006 peace agreement, inked in the Nigerian capital Abuja with the Sudanese government, were gathered for the preparatory talks, Chadian officials said. "This meeting... aims at bringing Sudanese rebel groups which have not signed the Abuja accord to harmonise their positions and speak in a single voice at the Tripoli conference," a Chadian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. It is hoped that the crunch talks in the Libyan capital on October 27 between all the Darfur rebel groups and the Sudanese government might help to bring a definitive end to the violence. However, the founding father of the Darfur rebellion, Abdel Wahid Mohammed Nur, who does not recognise the legitimacy of several of the other rebel factions, shunned Wednesday's meeting. Nur, who currently resides in Paris, had also boycotted talks in the Tanzanian city of Arusha early last month.

Reuters: Darfur rebel chief wants security before talks. One of Darfur's most powerful rebel leaders will not take part in peace talks until a lasting ceasefire is put in place and security is restored, he said in an interview published on Wednesday. Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur has refused to join Darfur rebel commanders and groups who agreed a joint position last month, saying he wants international troops to disarm militias to secure the region before talks with the government. "I will refuse to take part in political negotiations as long as my people continue on the ground to be massacred, raped, colonised," he said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday that recent fighting in Darfur could derail peace talks he has announced will start in Libya next month. "We are asking the international community for one thing and one thing only: security," Nur was quoted as saying. The newspaper said he wanted an end to violence and a ceasefire in place before he would take part in talks.

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