SUDAN: Sudan sought Arab help yesterday to head off possible sanctions threatened by the United Nations if Khartoum fails to rein in militiamen accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing in its western Darfur region.
Sudan has about three weeks left to show the UN Security Council it is serious about disarming the Janjaweed militia.
Darfur rebels say Khartoum is backing Janjaweed attacks to drive non-Arab villagers from their homes.
Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said Khartoum was seeking political support from Arab ministers "which will lead to the halting of any attempts to target Sudan or issuing of sanctions against it".
The ministers were meeting at the Arab League in Cairo yesterday for emergency discussions on Darfur, where the United Nations says fighting has killed 50,000 people, displaced one million and left two million short of food and medicine.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said the Arabs were inclined towards helping Sudan avoid sanctions. The league has said sanctions would not help resolve the humanitarian crisis.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Khartoum, which has agreed a plan with the UN to tackle the crisis, was proving its credibility.
The plan sets out steps to disarm the Janjaweed and other outlawed groups, improve security in Darfur and address the humanitarian crisis.
Mr Jan Pronk, the UN secretary-general's special representative to Sudan, told reporters in Cairo he hoped the Arab League meeting would provide political support for the plan's implementation.
But New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the Arab League to put pressure on Sudan's government, not to protect it. "Allowing the Sudanese government to hide its crimes behind Arab solidarity would be an insult to more than one million Muslim victims in Darfur," said Mr Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the group's Africa division.
"The Arab League should stand behind the victims in Darfur and take concrete steps to ensure that civilians are protected from further crimes," he said in a statement.
A long smouldering conflict between nomadic Arab herders and African villagers erupted in early 2003 when two Darfur rebel groups took up arms against Khartoum. The Arab Janjaweed began their campaign of killing in response, rights groups say.
The rebel Justice and Equality (JEM) movement said Khartoum was seeking Arab League protection to carry out "oppression and slaughter in Darfur". In a letter, JEM called on the Arab League to pressure Khartoum to give in to the will of the international community.
The African Union said yesterday that Khartoum and the two rebel groups, JEM and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), had agreed to peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria on August 23rd.
But JEM Secretary-General Bahar Idriss Abu Garda said neither JEM nor the SLA had been told of the date and rebel leaders were due at a conference in Germany on August 23rd.
The AU said the group's chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, would mediate the discussions between Khartoum and the rebels, which would be a continuation of a dialogue started in Addis Ababa on July 15th.The AU is proposing to send up to 2,000 troops to protect its ceasefire monitors in Darfur and to serve as peacekeepers.