c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) A flare-up of violence in Sudan’s western Darfur region threatens to spiral out of control as international religious aid agencies press the Sudanese government and rebel forces to engage in substantive peace talks.

Last week (Oct. 8) rebels associated with the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army killed three African Union peacekeepers from Nigeria and two civilian contractors. The next day, a splinter group of the SLM/A, the Justice and Equality Movement, kidnapped _ and held for a day _ 38 members of an African Union support group that included logistics personnel, a translator and civilian police.

The killings _ the first among AU peacekeepers since the pan-African body first deployed troops to the troubled region in April 2004 _ came as some rebel groups and the Sudanese government began a new round of talks aimed at ending the violence in Darfur.

The violence in Darfur has claimed an estimated 180,000 lives and displaced another 2.9 million people since fighting broke out between rebels and government-backed militias in February 2003.

“We have a highly aggravated deteriorating security situation,” Baba Gana Kingibe, the AU special representative to Darfur, told reporters on Tuesday.

“We have had some very terrible tragedies, but this is one of the lowest points _ if not the lowest _ that we have had,” Kingibe said.

Western critics accuse Sudan’s Muslim-led government in Khartoum of backing Arab “Janjaweed” militias in a systematic campaign to wipe out black Africans in Darfur, who are also Muslims. Khartoum sees the black Africans as rebels; the United States has termed the campaign “genocide.”

The upsurge in violence prompted the United Nations to order all nonessential staff out of Darfur on Thursday (Oct. 13).

As a new round of talks got under way in Abuja, Nigeria, seven religious aid agencies, including Lutheran World Relief, Church World Service and Norwegian Church Aid, called on the rebels and government to get serious about ending the violence.

The plea, which was also signed by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, Dan Church Aid, Trocaire and Christian Aid, was prompted in part by the abduction on Sept. 29 of three staff members of the Sudan Social Development Organization, which partners with Western aid agencies.

“Now more than ever it is important for the Sudanese government to show their commitment to preventing violence and seeking peace,” said Kathryn Wolford, head of Lutheran World Relief.

“We know that AU troops and military operations alone will not put an end to the violence in Sudan,” she said in a statement. “For peace in Sudan to exist and be sustained, there must be a political solution. That is why the talks in Abuja are so critical.”’

To others, however, the government in Khartoum is not the only guilty party.

A new report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, issued before the rebel attacks on the AU peacekeepers, faulted “discord within and between the rebel movements (that) also needs to be resolved if there is to be a chance for lasting peace.”

“As long as the rebels _ the SLA in particular _ remain divided and the fighting in Darfur continues, there is little hope for real success at the African Union-sponsored peace talks in Abuja, since the government is likely to exploit and exacerbate rebel weaknesses at the table.”

Splintering the rebel movements, the Brussels report warned, “would likely lead to the prevalence of warlordism throughout Darfur and make a political solution to the crisis impossible.”

It called on the international community to “better coordinate messages to prevent the rebel movements and factions from playing external actors against each other.”

“Frustrated as it is, the international community would, nevertheless, make a mistake if it chose an appearance of stability over a comprehensive solution since that would leave the root causes of the conflict untouched, despite hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of displacements.”

Some of that frustration was evident at the United Nations when U.S. Ambassador John Bolton blocked a Security Council briefing on Monday (Oct. 10) by Juan Mendez, Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special envoy on genocide.

Bolton later told reporters he had objected to the briefing to make the point the council should be “talking more about the steps it can take to do something about the deteriorating security situation” in Darfur.

Although Bolton offered no new proposals, he told the Associated Press there is the possibility of new sanctions against Sudan _ especially on new weapons flowing into the country.

KRE/RB END ANDERSON