Darfur rebel SLM in disarray as faction holds leadership vote
Nov 3, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — Darfur’s main rebel group was in disarray Thursday, as a dissident faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement held a leadership election that the group’s founder dismissed as illegitimate.
The ongoing power struggle inside the SLM further dimmed the prospect of successful peace talks with the government in Khartoum, 32 months after the bloody civil conflict erupted in western Sudan.
SLM hardliners holding a congress in Darfur, which was attended by thousands of Darfurians and rebel delegates, announced the dissolution of the group’s institutions.
“Ibrahim Ahmed Ibrahim (meeting chairman) has issued an order dissolving all institutions of the movement except the military,” spokesman Mahjub Hussein told AFP.
The order affected the group’s leadership organs, secretariat general and heads of chapters abroad.
“Chairman Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nur and Secretary General Mani Arko Minawi will carry on as caretakers until new leaders are elected,” Hussein said.
The congress was initially tipped as a reconciliation conference, but SLM founder Nur refused to attend the meeting, saying he was not consulted in advance, diminishing his chances of being re-elected.
Hussein said the elections, expected to be held later Thursday, would be monitored by foreign observers, including African Union (AU) and United Nations representatives and delegates from Libya and the United States.
Nur’s supporters dismissed Minawi’s group as a breakaway faction.
“They have stepped out of line,” Ahmed Jibril, an SLM political and military leader close to Nur, told AFP from Darfur. “We do not recognize the congress,” he added, saying it was simply an attempt by Minawi to unseat Nur.
“We are ready for dialogue if the other side is ready,” Jibril said. He also accused Minawi’s supporters of scuppering recent efforts by Chad to reconcile the two factions.
The SLM and another rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), launched an armed rebellion against Khartoum in early 2003, demanding greater political and economic autonomy from the central government.
Successive rounds of AU-sponsored peace talks have so far failed to end the conflict, which has left some 300,000 people dead and displaced about two million, with more than 200,000 people seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.
Darfur rebels have accused the government of continuing raids in Darfur, even as talks in Abuja were underway.
As recently as Wednesday night, they charged that government forces attacked a village in Darfur, killing three people, wounding 16 and torching 45 houses.
While Nur attended a latest round of peace negotiations in Nigeria, the dissident faction which is headed by Minawi and controls the movement’s military wing, boycotted the process.
After meeting US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick in Washington on Tuesday, Sudanese First Vice President and former southern rebel leader Salva Kiir acknowledged that the Darfur crisis was in an impasse as the government was also split over the issue.
He explained that his Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and its unity government partners from the northern National Congress Party had not yet reached a common platform for the next round of talks.
Kiir nevertheless voiced his hope of a breakthrough in the next round of negotiations.
“We are sure if the fighting groups in Darfur come together as one opposition group and come with one position to the Abuja talks, I believe we also will come in with one position as a government,” he said.
“If we find out the reason that led them to fight the government, I think we can find a solution.”
Observers said the infighting threatened to increase the level of insecurity in the region and hamper efforts to find a peaceful settlement to the Darfur conflict.
(AFP/ST)