(Photo: AP / Alfred de Montesquiou)The governor of North Darfur, Youssouf Kebir, center, shakes hands with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, right, as Nobel peace laureate, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, left, looks on at the governor's residence in El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007. A group of elder statesmen, including former U.S. President Carter and Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, urged all sides in Darfur's bloodshed to reach a peace deal as they began touring the region Tuesday.
(Photo: AP / Alfred de Montesquiou)Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, left, meets with the sheikh, or tribal leader, of a pro-government tribe in Kabkabiya town in Darfur, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007. Carter got in a shouting match Wednesday with Sudanese security officials who blocked him from a town in Darfur where he was trying to meet representatives of ethnic African refugees from the ongoing conflict. The visit by 'The Elders,' which is headed by Carter and Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu, is largely a symbolic move by a host of respected figures to push all sides to make peace in Darfur.
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Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu met up with former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in Darfur Tuesday to promote peace in Sudan’s war-ravaged region.
The two high-profile humanitarians were part of a delegation of prominent statesman, known as “The Elders,” visiting Darfur this week as peace talks are set to start in Libya and the first team of the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force is slated to deploy later this month.
The visit also comes days after an unprecedented attack on African peacekeepers in northern Darfur left 10 dead and dozens injured and missing. It was the deadliest assault on A.U. forces since the 7,000-strong mission was deployed to western Sudan in 2004.
“We are not here on a sightseeing tour. We hope we can do something that will make a significant difference…and bring peace,” said South African Archbishop Tutu, according to The Associated Press, after the delegation arrived in El Fasher – the capital of North Darfur province.
Tutu and Carter are leading the delegation which includes billionaire businessman Richard Branson; Graca Michel, wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela; and several prominent former statesmen from Africa.
Delegates will meet with refugees, non-governmental organizations, and officials to facilitate a peaceful solution in Darfur, where some 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million people displaced since 2003.
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Khartoum is widely accused by both Darfurians and the international community of unleashing the pro-government janjaweed militia on Darfurians after rebels from ethnic African tribes in the region rose up against the central government.
U.S. President George W. Bush has condemned the violence in Darfur as “genocide.”
“Maybe some don’t think it’s genocide,” said Bush on Sept. 25 at the U.N. Security Council meeting, according to Bloomberg. “If you are mercilessly killed by roaming bands, you know it is genocide. And the fundamental question is, are we in the free world willing to do more?”
Carter said the main goal of the three-day visit to Sudan is to seek free and fair elections for what would be the first democratic election in Sudan in 2009.
