Development and Cooperation


	Contributions from the Column Facts and trends Wealthy countries are not fulfilling duties Clinton versus Bush World Bank considers ban of company The fight against poverty: NGOs lack priorities Sudan: conflict escalates in Darfur Afghanistan should be self-sufficient in ten years “Disarmament must begin within the Afghan government” 5/2004		Sudan: conflict escalates in Darfur While significant progress has been made in the peace talks between the Sudanese government and the South Sudanese rebel group SPLM/A (a peace accord was in sight in early April), the conflict in the West Sudanese province of Darfur is escalating. In Darfur, two rebel groups are fighting against the government because they feel they are being ignored in the peace talks with the SPLM/A. In turn, the government in Khartoum is supporting nomadic Arab militias as allies in the conflict against the rebels; in March, however, they also carried out increased bombing raids themselves. The militias use the government’s backing as a pretext to massacre the resident black African civilian population. Observers talk of “ethnic cleansing”. At the beginning of April there were approximately one million Sudanese refugees, more than 100 000 of which fled across the border into neighbouring Chad. The United Nations described the situation in Darfur as currently the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster”. In the first week of April, there was a glimpse of hope as representatives from the government and both rebel groups came together in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, to hold talks for the first time. (ell)