Al-Beshir says army has crushed Darfur fighting, rebels deny loss

KHARTOUM, Feb 9 (AFP) — President Omar al-Beshir said that the army had crushed a year-old rebellion in the Darfur region of western Sudan, but a spokesman for one of three rebel groups insisted they remained in position.

In a military communique put out Monday by his office, Beshir declared the “end of military operations” and said all three component states in the troubled area bordering Chad were “entirely in government hands”.

He called for a general amnesty throughout the region provided that all rebels surrender their weapons to police within a month, and for the organization of a conference on “development and peace” in the Darfur area.

But Beshir warned: “The armed forces are prepared to dissuade all those who would threaten the security of our citizens.”

Colonel Abdallah Abdel Kerim, military spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) — one of the rebel groups fighting against government troops in the Darfur region — quickly denied Beshir’s claim.

“This information is false. We still control all of our positions in the Darfur region, notably in Jabal Marrah and Jabal Moun,” two mountainous districts, Abdel Kerim told AFP by telephone.

Abdel Kerim, who said he was speaking from the Jabal Marrah area, said his movement had been observing a unilateral ceasefire for over a week for “humanitarian reasons”, especially to allow refugees to move within the region.

But he promised “military surprises in the coming days”, without elaborating.

The other two rebel movements — the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA) — could not be reached for comment.

Some 3,000 people have been killed and another 670,000 displaced within Sudan itself by the war pitting government troops and their Arab militia allies against rebels drawn mainly from the region’s non-Arab minorities.

Another 100,000 Sudanese are estimated to have fled across the border into Chad because of the rebellion that erupted a year ago over the Darfur region’s alleged economic neglect by the government.

Late last month, the Sudanese army announced it had taken control of a number of districts on the border with Chad, including the divided town of Tine, sparking a fresh exodus of refugees across the frontier.

Abdel Kerim confirmed that the JEM had withdrawn “two weeks ago” from those areas.

Chad has repeatedly intervened as a mediator in the crisis, securing two ceasefires that subsequently collapsed. A third round of talks in the Chadian capital Ndjamena in December failed to produce an agreement.

On Saturday, Chad’s Foreign Minister Nagoum Yamoussoum appealed for “substantial contributions” in international aid to help the refugees who have crossed the border, putting their number at more than 115,000.

“The Chadian government urgently calls on the international community to make substantial contributions of every kind to ease the human suffering of Sudanese refugees,” he said.

Many of them are in “a state of unbearable deprivation and instability,” Yamoussoum told a meeting of foreign diplomatic staff and representatives of international agencies in Ndjamena.

“Lacking food, water and shelter, these people — already made very vulnerable by the numerous trials they have endured with the breach of the peace in the region — are dangerously exposed to all kinds of disaster,” he said.