SLM-Minnawi no longer a peace partner: Sudan army

December 3, 2010 (WASHINGTON) – The militias of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction led by Minni Arcua Minnawi are now legitimate military target, the Sudanese army said today.

The new development comes weeks after the SLM-Minnawi signed the security arrangement accord with Khartoum, a key provision in the Darfur peace agreement (DPA) signed in Abuja more than four years ago.

Minnawi, who now resides in South Sudan, suggested last week that he does not endorse the security arrangement deal signed by his aides.

A statement by the Sudanese army today added to the uncertainty and tension and between the two sides.

“A large portion of Minnawi’s forces have moved from the areas assigned to them under the agreement with weapons and vehicles and they are moving towards the south,” the army spokesman, al-Sawarmi Khaled was quoted by Reuters.

“We consider them a target now. We are searching for them and will engage them,” he said, adding the SLA intended to rejoin their former rebel allies in the south.

The SLA denied its troops were moving towards south Sudan.

“These troop movements are purely administrative,” said SLA spokesman Adil Mahjoub. “They want to return us to square one.”

An attack on SLA forces would be “a declaration of war”, he added.

In recent months, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in the north accused the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the south of harboring Darfur rebel groups including those from DPA non-signatories such as the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

Currently the government is negotiating with the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), an assortment of small dissenting factions cobbled together under Libyan and US auspices and led by Al-Tigani Al-Sissi. The two sides signed a ceasefire agreement last March in Doha and are now working on sealing a comprehensive peace accord.

The SLM-Minnawi has consistently accused the government of breaching the DPA and refusing to implement its provisions. Minnawi, who was until earlier this year the senior presidential adviser, is also unhappy about being excluded from the Doha talks with other rebel groups.

Today SLA spokesperson claimed that Khartoum had frozen the accounts of Darfur’s regional authority, which Minnawi headed after the 2006 deal.

“We cannot pay any salaries — these are employees of the Sudanese state,” he said.

Observers say that the Sudanese government lost interest in Minnawi particularly after being weakened in the wake of defections by his senior aides.

(ST)