Darfur rebel SLM to hold reconciliation meeting Friday

Oct 27, 2005 (CAIRO) — The main rebel group in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region said Thursday it had finalised preparations for the convening of its delayed key reconciliation conference and that it would open on Friday.

Sudan Liberation Army rebels from different bases come together for a meeting in Tarenjer village, west Darfur, October 11, 2004. (Reuters).

“We have completed all arrangements for the conference,” organizer for the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) conference, Ibrahim Ahmed Ibrahim, told AFP.

He said the conference, aimed at reconciling the group’s feuding factions ahead of a new round of peace talks with the government in the Nigerian capital Abuja next month, will take place in Darfur.

The majority of SLM delegates have already arrived at the meeting’s venue in rebel-held Darfur, near the central region of Kordofan, Ibrahim added.

The congress had been due to open on Tuesday, but organizers said logistical problems had delayed the arrival of foreign observers. “They have now begun to arrive,” Ibrahim said.

Organisers expect an estimated 800 SLM delegates to attended the three-day gathering that will try to heal the massive rift in the group over the latest round of peace talks with Khartoum.

One faction, led by chairman Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nur, participated in the talks in Abuja which adjourned last week, while another led by secretary general Mani Arko Minawi, boycotted the round and rejected its conclusions.

Each insists it controls the majority of SLM fighters.

It was still not clear if Nur, who is currently at an undisclosed location in Darfur, would attend the conference.

An influential think-tank warned earlier this month that divisions among the Darfur rebels threatened to derail efforts by the African Union to bring peace to the devastated western region after 32 months of conflict.

“Unless reversed, the slow implosion of the rebel movements threatens to extend the tragic situation in Darfur indefinitely,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group warned.

Up to 300,000 people have died in Darfur since the ethnic minority rebels launched their uprising in early 2003, according to a British parliamentary report.

Two million more have been left homeless after the government unleashed Arab militias in a scorched earth campaign against minority villages.

(AFP/ST)