SLM’s Nur faction snubs Darfur rebels reconciliation meeting

Oct 28, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — A key meeting of Darfur’s main rebel group that had been intended to reconcile its feuding factions failed to get off the ground Friday with the announcement of a boycott by one of the factions.

Supporters of Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) chairman Abdelwahed Mohamed Nur, who took part in the last round of peace talks with the government in Nigeria, announced that they would stay away from the meeting in rebel-held Darfur.

“Nur is boycotting the meeting which is bound to fail since it was not convened with our accord,” said of one his aides.

Ahmed Mohamed Jibril said only the faction led by secretary general Mani Arko Minawi, who boycotted this month’s Abuja talks, was attending the meeting, in which international observers were also due to participate.

The meeting was supposed to reconcile the two factions ahead of a new round of talks between the rebels and the government in Abuja on November 21.

Nur participated in the talks in Abuja which adjourned last week while Minawi boycotted the round and rejected its conclusions.

Each insists he commands the loyalty of the majority of SLM fighters.

Conference organizer Ibrahim Ahmed Ibrahim told AFP earlier that delegates and foreign guests would convene in Haskanita, a rebel-held town in North Darfur state.

“At the end of the three-day conference, SLM members will be asked to vote for a president and vice president as well as approve a new charter outlining the movement’s strategy and policies,” he said, adding that he expected 800 delegates to attend.

Ibrahim said the SLM had also invited some 200 guests, including observers from the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and the African Union.

The congress had been due to open on Tuesday but organizers said logistical problems had delayed the arrival of the foreign observers. “Some have now arrived or others will land later on Friday but on time for the conference,” Ibrahim said earlier.

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)