Darfur rebels denounce Sudan’s new government
Sept 22, 2005 (CAIRO) — The two main Darfur rebel groups on Thursday denounced the country’s unity government, saying it had failed to meet the minimum aspirations of Sudan’s marginalised people.
“The (unity government) that was formed does not in the least way represent the marginalised Sudanese people,” the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) said.
Sudan’s first post-war national unity government was sworn in earlier in the day, eight months after a peace deal that ended Africa’s longest-running conflict.
In line with the accord, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and its peace partner, former southern rebel group the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), got 80 percent of the ministerial posts.
The SLM argued in a statement faxed to AFP in Cairo that the line-up of the government had only “entrenched the dictatorship” of Beshir’s NCP, which grabbed 52 percent of the posts and most key ministries.
The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the other rebel group in Darfur, said it was an attempt by “the minority to dominate the majority in the country.”
It added: “This is not a true national unity government that expresses the will of the people of Sudan”.
A new round of African Union-sponsored peace negotiations between the two rebel groups and the government opened in the Nigerian capital Abuja on September 15, with Khartoum predicting a breakthrough by year’s end.
“The make-up of the new government raises questions about the viability of armed groups entering a peace agreement with this group if this minority refuses to offer concessions on power to the majority,” JEM said.
Its sister movement, the SLM, was even more pessimistic.
“There is no room for democratic transformation in Sudan except through armed struggle,” it stated.
The launch of the rebel uprising in February 2003 in Darfur prompted a scorched earth campaign by the government, which unleashed Arab militias against minority villages suspected of supporting the rebels.
Up to 300,000 people have died and more than two million have been displaced during the conflict, which the US Congress has termed a “genocide.”
(AFP/ST)