Sudan says it will react to Eritrean support for Darfur Rebels

By Al-Sahafah daily newspaper

KHARTOUM, Jan 09, 2004 — The Sudanese government has warned that it will not sit on its own hands on what Eritrea is doing in supporting and arming the Darfur rebels [Sudan Liberation Movement].

It [the government] revealed evidence which prove the involvement of Eritrean authorities.

A letter from the minister of foreign affairs, Dr Mustafa Uthman Isma’il, which was handed over yesterday evening [8 January] by the Sudanese ambassador in Addis Ababa, Uthman Al-Sayyid, to the chairman of the AU commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, said the evidence which the Sudanese government had obtained proved the involvement of the Eritrean government in training and arming the opposition in Darfur.

The letter stated that Eritrea seized Sudanese land by sending elements of the Ethiopian opposition from the Oromo Liberation Front [OLF], the Kafanig [name untraced] front and remnants of former Ethiopian president, Mengistu’s army.

The letter said that the Ethiopian authorities which arrested elements from those groups had sufficient evidence and proof which confirms that these “terrorist” elements came from Eritrea through Sudanese land after Eritrean security organs provided them with the required facilitation. [Passage omitted]

BBC Monitoring Middle East