Mediators at Darfur talks need patience

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Mediators at Darfur peace talks will need patience and negotiators need to be more representative of the people of Sudan's remote west, a group of elder statesmen said on Wednesday after visiting the region.

But peace in Darfur will be meaningless unless democratic elections, part of a separate north-south peace deal, go ahead as planned by 2009, they said.

"We hope that the participants will be patient, because this complex issue cannot be solved in a few days or in a few weeks," former U.S President Jimmy Carter told reporters.

He said many of the rebel groups, divided and numerous, did not represent the people of Darfur, who wanted peace, and said those members of civil society needed a voice at talks due to start on October 27 in Libya.

"Some of these rebel groups have no constituency except their own bandit members but they are the ones so far who are being qualified to participate," he said at the end of a three-day trip to Khartoum, south Sudan and Darfur.

Carter had earlier said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had pledged to triple compensation to those affected by the war to $300 million, but later said it was unclear what money was for reconstruction and what for compensation.

The group's trip to Darfur was marred by a heated exchange between the 83-year-old former president and a Sudanese security man who tried to stop him visiting a tribal leader, pointing up some of the problems facing the world's largest aid operation in the region.

International experts estimate 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur. Mostly non-African rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglect.