Bush Meets Rebel Leader To Discuss Darfur Accord

President Bush sat down yesterday with a Sudanese rebel leader whose forces are accused by refugee advocates of killing young men and raping women in the northern part of Darfur.

Bush met for about 40 minutes in the Oval Office with Sudanese Liberation Army leader Minni Minnawi. He was the lone rebel leader to agree in May to a U.S.-brokered peace accord to end what the United States calls genocide in western Sudan.

The president asked Minnawi to support a U.S.-backed plan to bring African Union peacekeepers in Darfur under the blue flag and helmets of the United Nations, said Frederick Jones, a National Security Council spokesman.

Bush told the rebel leader that his forces must refrain from violence and pressed him to forge an alliance with other factions in Darfur to broaden support for a peace agreement, Jones said.

Tens of thousands of Sudanese civilians have been killed over three years and 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes by Sudan's government and its militia allies, known as the Janjaweed, in what Bush has labeled a genocide.

Bush and Minnawi "had a frank exchange expressing concern for ending violence in Darfur," Jones said.

Jones had no comment on how Minnawi responded.

Minnawi was persuaded by then-Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick to support the U.S.-brokered peace agreement, but the deal is unraveling because of infighting among rebel groups and violence against civilians.

Minnawi faces rising opposition to his leadership among commanders in northern Darfur, including those from his Zaghawa tribe, according to the United Nations.

"He signed under incredible U.S. pressure and was probably given a lot of promises by the U.S. and the U.K.," said Jemera Rone, a Sudan specialist with the advocacy group Human Rights Watch. "I'm sure he feels that the U.S. government now owes him and the people of Darfur quite a lot."

A report issued earlier this month by the U.N. mission in Sudan cited allegations by displaced Sudanese that Minnawi's faction "was indiscriminately killing, raping women and abducting" civilians.

"That agreement is not working, and one of the many reasons is Minni Minnawi," Kenneth H. Bacon, president of the advocacy group Refugees International, wrote last week in a letter to Bush.

Refugees International said yesterday that Minnawi's forces have conducted a "reign of terror" in North Darfur by beating and raping women, killing young men and displacing thousands of people. Bacon asked Bush to "please stress" to Minnawi that the rebel leader "must honor the terms of the Darfur Peace Agreement and stop fighting."