Eastern Sudan rebels prepare to demobilise
Dec 19, 2006 (ASMARA) — Former rebels operating in eastern Sudan have begun assembling ahead of demobilisation or integration into the national army under a peace deal that ended 12 years of insurgency, officials said Tuesday.
An estimated 1,800 former Eastern Front rebels are gathering at positions close to government-held Sudanese territory, one inside Sudan and the other in western Eritrea, in line with the October agreement, the movement’s deputy chairwoman, Amna Dirar, told AFP in Asmara.
“Part of them are in the Eritrean area, and part of them are in the free area in Hamesh Koreb (in Sudan),” Dirar said, adding that these forces would enter government-controlled territory “probably in the coming few days.”
Dirar said that on Sunday she took part in a meeting between former rebels and the Sudanese military in the town of Kassala, on Sudan’s side of the border with Eritrea, to review progress in implementing the peace deal.
Under the accord, both sides are to release prisoners of war and the former rebel fighters are to decide whether to return to civilian life or join the Sudanese army or police.
The Eastern Front was created in 2005 by the Rashidiya Arabs and the region’s largest ethnic group, the Beja, after 11 years of low-level insurgency against the Khartoum government.
It had similar aims to its better-known counterparts in Darfur — greater autonomy and control of natural resources. Under the deal, Eastern Front leaders are to name an aide to Sudan’s President Omar el-Beshir and will get a junior minister’s post, with eight seats in parliament.
The accord with the eastern rebels is part of efforts to pacify the whole of Sudan, African’s largest country, by building on peace pacts the Arab regime in Khartoum has already reached with other rebel groups.
These include a deal last year with insurgents in the mainly Christian south and an accord in May this year with one of the rebel factions in the western region of Darfur.
But there are concerns that militias operating in the south are undermining the peace agreement there and Darfur continues to be plagued by a vicious civil war.
(AFP)