AU fears risk of escalation of hostilities between Chad, Sudan
Dec 28, 2005 (PARIS) — President of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, says there is a risk of escalation of hostilities between Chad and Sudan, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported.
We have a very difficult situation in western Sudan region of Darfur, said the former Malian president, should there be further complications between Chad and Sudan, it will be a disaster.
Iddriss Deby’s latest remarks will not do much to reassure Konare. The Chadian president held talks with his Nigerian counterpart near Lagos. We would like Sudan to be condemned for its aggression, he said in a dossier he handed to Olusegun Obasanjo, Blaise Compaore, Burkinabe president, and Francois Bozize, the Central African head of state, who was in Ndjamena on Monday 26 December.
The dossier contains a list of Sudan’s subversive activities against Sudan as well as photos showing Mohamat Nour, leader of rebel RDL, the movement behind the Adré attack, in open conversation with the Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir.
The Chadian dossier is based on, said RFI, on analyses by Sudanese intelligence which Chadian intelligence came across. Cited are first the wish by Sudan right from the start to drag the agreement on Darfur by buying the rebel leaders to deepen the rift between the rebel groups, setting the Janjawid against villages supporting the rebels.
In April 2004 information attributed to African Union forces in Al-Fashir revealed to Chad that the Sudanese government had integrated into its army a section of Chadian rebels. The sources revealed a few days later that the rebels were 3,000.
The dossier continues to talk about Mohamat Nour’s personality, whom it describes as a Chadian army deserter who had appeared several times on Sudanese TV and who, RFI still quoting, as a close friend of President Al-Bashir.
After reviewing about a hundred Toyota vehicles that were said to have been delivered with the help of the Sudanese authorities to the Chadian rebels, the report concludes with the promise by Chad to prevent rebel activity in Darfur despite double standards by Sudan, which continues to encourage Chadian rebels with a view to destabilising the Ndjamena regime.
(ST)