Sudan accuses Eritrea, Popular Congress party of supporting Darfur rebels

KHARTOUM, Dec 19 (AFP) — Sudan has accused Eritrea and a local Islamist opposition party of backing western Darfur rebels, leading to a recent collapse in peace talks, the SUNA news agency reported Friday.

Following the breakdown of Chad-sponsored peace talks between Khartoum and the Sudan Liberation Movement earlier this week, the governor of North Darfur State accused the Popular Congress Party of supporting the Darfur rebels.

The SLM “is backed by Eritrea … in addition to the material and personal support by the Popular Congress,” Major General Abdel Karim Abdallah, head of the government delegation at the Chad talks, was quoted as saying by SUNA.

Abdallah fingered Hassan Ibrahim who, he said was a leading PCP member and travelled to Darfur to become spokesman for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Suleiman Jamous, Abu Bakr Hamid and Ahmed Keir Jebreel also took part in an SLM meeting in North Darfur that adopted demands which led to the collapse of the talks, Abdullah said.

He challenged the PCP to disown these politicians.

Abdallah said he also had evidence that Eritrea supplied the Darfur rebels with arms because it “wants to fan flames of the war in west and east Sudan after it was halted in the south.”

A senior PCP official in Khartoum acknowledged that Jamous and Hamid are leading members of the party, but told AFP that Ibrahim and Jebreel were not and that “I do not know them.”

Jamous and Hamid were recently released from detention along with PCP leader Hassan al-Turabi and travelled to see their families in Darfur, party official Beshir Adam Rahmah said.

“It is natural that a freed person visits his people,” said Rahmah, adding that no PCP member had been told to support the Darfur rebels and that “the party has not taken such a decision to assist the rebels.”

The government’s accusation was a pretext to “obstruct the political activities of the party,” the official added.