Rebel leader calls for talks on Darfur security

October 12, 2009 (PARIS) — Abdel Wahid Al-Nur, the founder of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) called today on all mediators seeking to achieve peace in Darfur to join their hands with him to provide security and to ease the difficult humanitarian situation in the troubled region.

Al-Nur who in the past rejected participation in the peace process unless government disarms its militias and facilitate the return of the displaced population, said his movement is ready to engage on ways to implement the “conflict suspension” process which aims to protect Darfur civilians.

The rebel leader who says his goal is to defend the rights of the victims of war and to find a radical solution to the root causes of the conflict believes that the realization of security in the troubled region and the return of the displaced to their homeland represent a major part of a lasting solution to the crisis.

“We are ready to talk to any party willing to achieve a serious peace and wants to enforce the conflict suspension process on the ground,” Al-Nur said. He further stressed that “peace was and remains the strategic and ultimate objective of Darfur people and the SLM”.

The Paris based rebel leader further said that pressures are unproductive because Darfur people “lost anything and therefore they fear no one”

“When people confronted genocide, murder, rape, torture and lost their children and proprieties one can’t come up with threats to force them to sign a peace deal that they would not be there to implement. Going to peace talks without providing security to the people amounts to betrayal”.

Al-Nur in an interview with Sudan Tribune on Monday also said the ongoing attempts to establish new rebel groups would not end the conflict because it aims at harming the main rebel groups more than finding a true solution for the conflict.

“Many mediators are going after rebel reunification saying they would make peace with these new entities without asking themselves if these new groups are able to enforce a peace once signed”.

“If after six years of bloody conflict, people are still supporting our movement, this is simply because we are voicing their demands. Let us come together and see how to satisfy it,” he said.

He further described the current attempts by regional and international brokers to reunite the rebel factions in Darfur, as a “remake” to what had been attempted in the past without success by the former team of mediation.

“I think it would not be wise to do a remake to what had been done by other people in the past. Now we have new teams but coming with the same old bad solutions. It would be better if they seek to find new recipes for success”.

In May 2006, Al-Nur refused to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement in Abuja demanding that the Sudanese government compensate the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’s), to protect property of the land, to disarm government militias, and to establish one region in the province, as well as other demands related to wealth and power sharing on the regional and national levels.

However, the founder of the rebel SLM in January 2007, proposed the “conflict suspension” process asking Khartoum to disarm the militias, to organize the return of the IDP’s and expel the new settlers from their lands. He also said that Khartoum should enforce these measures first because the government used to dishonor signed deals alluding to a ceasefire signed in April 2004.

Aiming to foster the DPA, the former mediation team, who worked out Abuja peace deal, initially sought to rally rebel factions to the agreement but very quickly turned its efforts to organize an “Abuja Plus” process and engaged in a parallel unification efforts triggering the emergence of myriad of rebel factions.

(ST)