Sudan opposition says members held “for rebel links”
KHARTOUM, Dec 31 (Reuters) – A Sudanese opposition Islamist party said on Wednesday the government had arrested three of its leaders and 22 other members for having links to rebels in the western Darfur region of Africa’s largest country.
Witnesses also said Sudanese authorities raided a Khartoum university dormitory on Wednesday and arrested 50 members of the politically active Darfur Students’ Union there.
The Popular National Congress (PNC) party led by prominent Islamist Hassan al-Turabi denied any direct contact with two main Darfur rebel groups. The groups launched a revolt in February, accusing Khartoum of marginalising the remote area.
The United Nations says the Darfur strife has displaced more than 600,000 people and warns of a humanitarian crisis there.
“The government arrested these people…because they are from the same tribe as the rebels,” PNC official Mohamed al-Amin Khalifa told Reuters, adding that he felt Khartoum wanted to rearrest Turabi but held back because of international pressure.
Turabi, a former ally and idealogue in President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s Islamist government, was released in October after two and a half years of detention for crimes against the state.
Government officials declined to comment on the arrests but the state-owned al-Anbaa newspaper quoted Bashir on Wednesday as saying Khartoum’s priority was to “wipe out the rebels”.
But the PNC said the government was wrong to target it because it offered the best chance of finding a peace deal, thanks to historical links to the Darfur-based rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and leaders who came from the region.
Khalifa said JEM was formed after splitting from the PNC in 1999. But JEM denied the claim.
“We are an independent group with no links at all with the PNC or Turabi,” JEM Chairman Khalil Ibrahim told Reuters.
The other main Darfur rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), signed a truce with Khartoum in September but peace talks broke down earlier this month with both sides blaming each other. The SLA also said JEM was allied to Turabi’s party.
JEM has not entered into talks with the government.
Analysts say the Darfur conflict could derail peace talks with a separate southern-based rebel group to end two decades of civil war in the south. Bashir said on Monday he expected a peace talks in Kenya to yield a final peace deal within a week.