Two Sudanese Darfur rebel groups say to merge

Jan 20, 2006 (N’DJAMENA) — Two rebel groups from Sudan’s violent western region of Darfur said on Friday they would combine their military forces and other activities under the banner of the “Allied Revolutionary Forces of Western Sudan”.

Darfur’s rebels took up arms against the Khartoum government in 2003, triggering violence involving pro-government militias that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced an estimated 2 million from their homes.

A succession of shifting alliances and rifts between rebel factions has complicated efforts to end the conflict and at times increased violence on the ground in Darfur.

Two of the main rebel factions, the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) issued a joint statement on their decision after a meeting in N’Djamena, the capital of neighbouring Chad.

“The two movements have agreed to combine and coordinate all their political, military and social forces, their international relations, and to double their combat capacity in a joint entity under the name ‘Allied Revolutionary Forces of Western Sudan’,” they said.

The statement was signed by Khalil Ibrahim Mahamat for the JEM and Minni Arcua Minnawi for the SLM.

A dispute between Minnawi and Abdel Wahed Mohamed, who each claimed the presidency of the SLM, was a stumbling block to peace talks in Nigeria late last year, when there was also disgreement on how to deal with other rival rebel factions.

Chad, engaged in a diplomatic dispute with Sudan over attacks in border areas by Chadian rebels who it says are backed by Khartoum, has in the past dismissed Sudanese accusations that it is helping the Darfur rebels.

(Reuters)