Darfur rebels to sign ceasefire with Sudan-leader

KHARTOUM, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Rebels from the Sudanese region of Darfur are due to sign a ceasefire agreement with the government on Wednesday to halt seven months of conflict, the leader of the rebel movement said.

“We are going now to sign the ceasefire agreement,” Secretary-General of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA/M) Minni Arcuo Minnawi told Reuters by telephone from Darfur, an arid region in the west of Africa’s largest country.

Sudan’s government has previously said it would not negotiate with the SLA/M, which emerged as a fighting force in February and accuses the government of marginalising Darfur.

The government is due to restart peace talks with a separate rebel group from the south of Sudan on September 10 in Kenya, in hopes of ending a 20-year-old civil war that has killed two million people. The two rebel groups are not linked.

Minnawi said delegations from his group and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government had been in talks in Sudan’s western neighbour Chad for several days, but said the government would not sign a deal without the presence of Abdalla al-Beker Besher, a senior SLA/M military leader.

Besher had now arrived in Abeche, in eastern Chad, where the deal would be signed, Minnawi said. Chadian President Idriss Deby was mediating the deal, he added.

Government-owned al-Anbaa newspaper said on Wednesday the presidential adviser for security affairs would head the government delegation to the meeting with Darfur rebels in Chad.

It added the ceasefire deal followed a “fruitful” trip by the head of the political secretariat of the ruling National Congress party to Europe where he met a number of Darfur rebels.

Minnawi said the ceasefire deal included provisions for an initial 45-day halt to hostilities and the formation of a joint committee of delegates from his group, Sudan’s government and from Chad to supervise the troubled region.

He added the SLA/M wanted the United Nations to play a role in supervising Darfur, and for the government to allow humanitarian aid to help people displaced by the conflict.

The SLA/M mainly comprises fighters drawn from African tribes and accuses Bashir’s government in Khartoum of excluding Darfur from power and development.

Fighting between African farming communities and Arab cattle herders is common in the region. The conflicts are fuelled by rivalry over scarce water resources and pasture.