Darfur rebel SLA delays start of unity meeting
Oct 28, 2005 (DARFUR, Sudan) — Darfur’s main rebel group delayed the start of a meeting to elect new leadership on Friday after members found it difficult to cross the rocky terrain to reach the secret location in Sudan’s war-ravaged west.
“The conference is delayed because some members had problems to come today because they are coming from far away,” said chief organiser Ibrahim Ahmed Ibrahim, adding the conference would now begin on Saturday.
“It is very difficult to reach here by road we have no helicopters,” he added at the secret site in the far east of South Darfur state where a large white tent sits empty waiting for the meeting to begin.
The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) congress, the first of its kind for the rebels, hopes to produce a joint position for peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja and unite rank-and-file field commanders under a new, elected executive.
Factionalism within the main rebel SLA and escalating violence in Darfur has hampered African Union-sponsored peace efforts, which ended a sixth round on Oct. 20 in Nigeria with little progress.
Field commanders said they called the congress because they were worried about stand-offs between their leaders.
Personality differences between the SLA’s two main leaders, Secretary-General Minni Arcua Minnawi and President Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur have meant the two rarely present a united front.
Minnawi spends much more time in the field, a move which has garnered him more support among the military commanders. Nur refused to attend the conference, but returned to Darfur this week for the first time in more than a year, which observers say was because he feared losing his position on the ground.
“We are all fighting for the same cause,” said SLA commander Ali Mokhtar. “These are just personality differences which have to be put behind them.”
“SLA FOR REVOLUTION”
Some SLA soldiers carrying Kalashnikovs lounged under trees and bushes near the meeting site while others drove around the area in trucks chanting, “SLA for revolution!”
The location of the SLA meeting is a closely guarded secret to ward off possible attack by Arab militia, known locally as Janjaweed.
The militias stand accused of a widespread campaign of rape, killing and burning in non-Arab villages during the 2-1/2 year-old revolt, which forced more than 2 million people from their homes and sparked a major humanitarian crisis.
Rebels say the Janjaweed work for the government, a charge Khartoum denies. The International Criminal Court is investigating charges of war crimes in Darfur, although the government has refused to cooperate with the court.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who has tried to mediate between rebels and the Sudanese government, has donated equipment and food to the congress.
But some observers say other international players have not been supportive of the conference, saying it should have been called by Nur and would only increase factionalism within the movement.
“They are under huge pressure as some diplomats have threatened to withdraw all support if they go ahead with this,” said a source close to the Abuja talks.
The top U.N. envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, had earlier encouraged the conference and pledged to help, but has since not provided assistance and will not attend. Top AU commanders of the 6,000-strong ceasefire monitoring mission in Darfur will attend the meeting.
The smaller rebel group represented in Abuja, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), is also dogged by splits. Breakaway JEM factions earlier this month abducted a team of AU personnel, demanding a seat at the negotiating table.
(Reuters)