East Sudan rebels say observing ceasefire

ASMARA, Aug 5, 2004 (Reuters) — The biggest rebel group in eastern Sudan has not resumed hostilities against the government contrary to Khartoum’s claims, a rebel spokesman said on Thursday.

The Beja Congress, which claims to control large parts of the east, say they’re still observing a self-imposed ceasefire and would attack only if provoked.

“We’ve been on ceasefire since November 2003,” Salah Barqueen the Beja Congress spokesman told Reuters in the Eritrean capital Asmara.

“We want to see the final results of the Naivasha peace talks. If they include us, and the problem in Darfur in the annexes then we will go further in the peace talks.”

The spokesman said Sudan claimed on Saturday that it had intelligence reports that eastern groups had begun military activities with the help of the Eritrean government.

Delegates from Khartoum and the main southern rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) are fine-tuning a peace settlement after signing peace accords in May at the Kenyan town of Naivasha. Other rebels such as those in Darfur and the east have not been part of these negotiations.

Barqueen alleged that the Sudanese government had over the last year been arming and training Janjaweed militia in eastern Sudan and urged both the government and the international community to tackle the issue before it worsened as in Darfur.

There was no immediate comment from Khartoum.

The Janjaweed are blamed for driving more than a million people from their homes in the western region, creating what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Beja Congress claim to control 110,000 square km of eastern Sudan stretching along the Eritrean border and up the Red Sea coast. The Beja’s are non-Arab Muslims who say that eastern Sudan, like Darfur in the west has been marginalised by the northern based government.

Analysts say the rebels, from a Muslim Sufi order, are few and attacks have been confined to the Khartoum to Port Sudan highway. Darfur rebels say they have links with the group.