By Pascal Fletcher DAKAR, March 12 (Reuters) - Rebels from Chad and Sudan's Darfur dismissed on Wednesday a new non-aggression pact due to be agreed by the countries' presidents, saying it would not bring lasting peace. Chadian President Idriss Deby and his Sudanese counterpart Omar Hassan al-Bashir were scheduled to meet in Dakar later on Wednesday in reconciliation talks hosted by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal on the eve of a summit of Islamic states. Wade, who has sought a mediation role in several African conflicts, has drafted a peace accord to be signed by Deby and Bashir in the hope it can help end years of conflict on both sides of their common border, which includes Darfur. Chad and Sudan have long traded accusations of supporting rebels hostile to each other. A series of previous peace pacts signed by Deby and Bashir in the past two years have collapsed amid renewed fighting in both countries. Sudan's Bashir, who accuses Deby of failing to respect previous deals to stop supporting insurgents, has questioned the usefulness of yet another accord on paper, raising doubts as to whether the signing in Dakar will take place. Chadian and Sudanese Darfuri rebel groups, which many see as fighting a proxy war for the presidents, said they did not believe the accord would end fighting in either country. "It's going nowhere. It's just a protocol, a ceremony," said Ali Ordjo Hemchi, a representative of the Chadian rebel National Alliance, whose forces raided the capital N'Djamena last month. Faulting the fact the planned Dakar deal did not include the rebels, he accused Senegalese leader Wade of "playing to the gallery" a day before he hosts a summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Chad and Sudan are OIC members. "They (Deby and Bashir) can sign, but it's not going to produce anything," Hemchi said, adding that at least five previous accords, brokered mostly by Libya but also by Saudi Arabia, had collapsed. "It's a non-event." Rebel leaders fighting the Sudanese government in Darfur also said it would make little difference to the conflict there whether or not Sudan's president signed a new pact with Chad. KILLINGS GO ON "The Khartoum government has signed agreements with Chad ... agreements with the United Nations. And still our people are getting killed," Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) chairman Abdel Wahed Mohamed Ahmed al-Nur said. Around 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 in Darfur's conflict, which pits Sudanese government forces and allied militia against local rebels who say the western region has been neglected and marginalised by the Khartoum government. Alex de Waal, an analyst and writer who specialises in Sudan and Chad, said he did not believe either Deby or Bashir were interested in non-military options. "If they do sign, it'll be purely for tactical reasons, to gain credit with the international community," he said. Another Darfuri rebel group, the SLA-Unity faction, said a new peace deal would not stop Bashir's government from trying to topple Chad's Deby, although Khartoum denies this intention. "They will sign any kind of deal. But they will just go on with their plan," said SLA-Unity representative Suleiman Jamous. Wade has invited U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and leaders of the African Union and the European Union to sit in on the Dakar peace talks and to act as guarantors of any deal signed. But he has given few details of the proposed accord. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Additional reporting by Andrew Heavens in Khartoum; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)
Ugandan soldiers from the African Union (AU) show a Somali woman an x-ray at their makeshift hospital in Mogadishu March 9, 2008. Uganda was the first of two countries to send ...
