Word: nur
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Pressure on Nur has escalated in recent weeks, with the first major international peace talks in 18 months on Darfur scheduled to open in Libya on October 27. The purpose of that meeting is to get all the parties to the conflict to agree to a cease-fire that would allow 26,000 U.N.-mandated African Union troops in to protect civilians and keep the peace...
...while the government has agreed to attend the talks in Tripoli, from his refuge in Paris Abdulwahid El-Nur is refusing to go. "I don't care about the peace talks at all," he says angrily. "We are working for real peace...
...Nur hardly looks like a rebel leader. A rotund man, he races between meetings in a checked suit jacket and charcoal wool trousers, clutching a mobile phone. But if his appearance is misleading, there's no doubting that Nur has the loyalty of many of the military commanders among the splintered rebel organizations in Darfur, according to aid workers who have recently traveled around the region. They say Nur remains especially popular among the more than 2 million displaced people languishing in camps. Driven from their villages across a vast, blighted landscape, those people are key to whether a peace...
...Nur, who has a renewable three-month tourist visa allowing him to stay in the European Union, says he is under "very, very high pressure" from European governments to make peace. He says peace talks are not possible while government attacks continue in Darfur and before international forces are on the ground to enforce a cease-fire. He also insists that displaced families receive compensation and help in returning home to their villages; promises by Western governments of support for rebuilding the shattered region have been more vague...
...French foreign ministry spokesman this week told TIME that the French government had tried hard to get Nur to the peace talks. "We have done everything we can to persuade him to go," he said. "For the moment we can do nothing more." Clearly exasperated, Foreign Minister Kouchner told reporters at the United Nations last month that he had told Nur "10,000 times" that he risked being politically marginalized in Sudan if he did not attend peace talks. But, despite his irritation, Kouchner said in a statement this week that Nur would not be asked to leave France...