Sudan’s govt says is ready to talk with new armed groups in Darfur
By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Dec 6, 2004 (AP) — Sudan on Monday said it was willing to meet with new insurgent groups in Darfur to address the security of displaced persons and humanitarian groups in the troubled region.
Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said the government was interested in meeting with the National Movement for Reform and Development and Al Shahamah (Nobility) Movement, which have recently arisen in the region and are not part of ongoing peace negotiations with Khartoum.
“Talks with them will focus on security, as they have become a threat to the security of the displaced persons and the refugees and as they started attacking tribes and properties,” Sudan ‘s official news agency quoted Ismail as saying.
The foreign minister was speaking after a meeting of the Joint Implementation Mechanism, a body comprising U.N. officials, Sudanese Cabinet ministers and international aid groups that meets regularly to monitor developments in the conflict.
Ismail said arrangements would be made with the government security bodies to open channels of communication with the new factions, stressing that the government would ask those movements to evacuate areas they are currently operating in to avoid tribal clashes.
“We will not open a forum to discuss the question of Darfur but we will assure them that any solution reached in Abuja would be applied to all the citizens of Darfur and any political solution reached would not be confined to the groups that are currently taking part in the Abuja talks, ” Ismail was quoted as saying.
The main two rebel groups involved in the Darfur conflict – JEM and the Sudan Liberation Army – have been in talks with Sudan government representatives in Abuja, Nigeria. Those talks led to a cease-fire agreement on Nov. 9, but both sides have since accused the other of violating that truce.
The NMRD, which apparently broke off from the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, has recently been reported to be active in North Darfur, attacking refugees and displaced persons camps and impeding the flow of humanitarian relief.
Ismail said the National Movement for Reform and Development broke away from JEM on the grounds that the main body was more concerned with its political agenda in Khartoum than with the problems in Darfur.
He said the new movement has between 1,000 to 3,000 troops and is centered in North Darfur state.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Al Shahamah Movement is based in West Kordofan.
The Darfur conflict, which the U.N. describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, began in February 2003 when the SLA and allied JEM took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.
The government responded with a counterinsurgency campaign in which the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, has committed wide-scale abuses against the African population.
Some 70,000 people have been killed and 1.8 million driven from their homes in the arid region.