EL-FASHER, Sudan (AFP) — United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon visited the strife-torn Sudanese region of Darfur Wednesday, admitting the international community has not done enough to end four years of war and human suffering.
Ban, who is in Sudan to jumpstart the Darfur peace process ahead of a massive UN-African Union peacekeeping operation, arrived in the North Darfur capital of Al-Fasher to witness firsthand the plight of those displaced by the conflict.
"For too long the international community has stood by, as seemingly helpless witnesses. That is now changing," Ban had said in a speech in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba on Tuesday.
The UN Secretary General has been pushing for negotiations alongside the peacekeeping operation, and said details were being worked out for talks between the Khartoum government and Darfur rebel groups that did not sign a troubled May 2006 peace agreement.
"As far as the political negotiation process is concerned, we are coming close to agreeing on a venue and date," Ban told reporters travelling with him. "I hope I'll be able to finalise it very soon."
A UN official said on condition of anonymity that the talks were likely to take place in October, "somewhere in Africa, perhaps in Tanzania."
After talks with the governor of North Darfur, Ban was met by a small demonstration as he made his way to the UN mission headquarters for discussions with representatives of the more than two million displaced people in Darfur.
Several dozen men and women, who said they too had been driven from their homes, protested at being excluded from the talks.
"Darfur is ours," they shouted. "We want to be represented."
The soft-spoken UN chief reassured the demonstrators he was ready to listen to anyone, before being ushered away by his security detail.
After a brief delay, Ban resumed his schedule, including a meeting with three representatives of the displaced and another with civil society and traditional leaders, the UN said in a statement.
Later during a visit to the Al-Salam camp near Al-Fasher, Ban was greeted by refugees chanting the name of Abdel Wahid Nur, the rebel leader still refusing to take part in negotiations with Khartoum.
Nur boycotted peace talks at the Tanzanian city of Arusha this month, where eight rebel groups agreed a common platform for peace talks with the Sudan's government, sponsored by the UN and the African Union. Ban called on Nur to join the political process.
The UN estimates that at least 200,000 people have died in Darfur since an uprising launched by ethnic minority rebels in 2003 drew a scorched earth response from the Sudanese military and allied militias.
The International Criminal Court's prosecutor has called on the UN to pressure Sudan to bring to justice two suspects wanted over atrocities committed in Darfur, a conflict the United States has described as genocide.
Ban has made Darfur his top priority since taking office in January, and is seeking to ensure that the 26,000 strong UN-AU force can be deployed quickly to protect civilians who bear the brunt of the violence.
The hybrid force was agreed by the UN Security Council on July 31 after months of intense diplomacy, but it is not expected to be fully deployed before mid-2008.
Ban told journalists he had obtained Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's "commitment and readiness" to clear the way for the deployment of UN peacekeepers and said that "time is of the essence" as fighting continues.
In a potential boost to peace efforts, Ban said Beshir had promised to allow key rebel leader Suleiman Jamous to leave Sudan and seek medical attention, after which the veteran could act as mediator.
A high-ranking UN official said Jamous was still in Sudan, "but we hope to get him out today (Wednesday)."
The UN chief arrived in Darfur from south Sudan where he sought to consolidate a 2005 peace deal that ended two decades of civil war in Africa's largest nation.
"It is crucially important that we implement the (peace deal)... it is important that the leaders of both the north and the south be fully committed," Ban said in Juba, headquarters for a 10,000-strong UN force charged with overseeing the uneasy peace.
Both the southern Sudan conflict and the violence gripping Darfur have their roots in the local populations' deep-seated feelings of being marginalised by Beshir's Islamist government.
Power- and wealth-sharing provisions in the 2005 deal with the southern former rebels are seen as a potential blueprint for a Darfur deal.
A UN official travelling with Ban described south Sudan as being in "a fragile state" and warned that any collapse of the peace deal there would be "a nightmare" that would have an enormous knock-on effect on Darfur.
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