Rebel SLA – Minawi agrees Darfur peace deal
May 5, 2006 (ABUJA) — The biggest of three rebel factions from Sudan’s Darfur region accepted a peace deal with the government on Friday but two other factions rejected it, casting doubt on whether the agreement would be workable.
A faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) led by Minni Arcua Minnawi said it would sign a peace settlement drafted by African Union (AU) mediators after two years of talks.
“I accept the document with some reservations concerning the power sharing,” Minnawi told Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and a host of senior diplomats meeting at Obasanjo’s Abuja compound.
A spokesman for Minnawi’s faction later said the main reservation was what they saw as insufficient representation in terms of parliamentary seats.
But Minnawi had agreed to the deal to help end the suffering of the people of Darfur and of the SLA fighters in the field, he said.
Earlier a rival faction of the SLA and the smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rejected the deal citing a wide range of objections.
The Sudanese government delegation later met with the same group of African heads of state and Western diplomats to give its response to the agreement.
The government had accepted the original AU draft but the version now on the table was amended by Zoellick and a team of Western diplomats to squeeze a few extra concessions for the rebels.
These include stronger guarantees for the rebels in the security arrangement. In particular, provisions for rebel fighters to join the Sudanese armed forces are strengthened, as is a requirement that Sudan disarm its proxy Janjaweed militias.
Three deadlines for a deal had passed since Sunday despite intensive international efforts to end a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and driven more than 2 million from their homes.
The SLA and the JEM took up arms in early 2003 in ethnically mixed Darfur, a region the size of France, over what they saw as neglect by the Arab-dominated central government.
Khartoum used militias, drawn from Arab tribes, to crush the rebellion. A campaign of arson, looting and rape has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and the United States labels the violence there “genocide”.
Observers say failure to reach an agreement would be disastrous for the people of Darfur.
INFIGHTING
Minnawi has more support among SLA fighters than rival faction leader Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur, observers say, and JEM is marginal in terms of forces on the ground. But it is unclear how useful an agreement signed by only one of the three factions would be.
The rebels have complex internal politics and a history of infighting which has hampered the entire peace process.
JEM chief negotiator Ahmed Tugod told Reuters the JEM rejected the AU draft because it did not meet a series of key rebel demands.
These are a Darfur regional government, a post of Sudanese vice president, greater representation in national institutions, compensation for victims of the war and the allocation of 6.5 percent of Sudan’s national income to a Darfur development fund.
Most of these demands have been known for months and mediators have long said they could not be met in full.
While peace talks dragged on in Abuja, violence has escalated in Darfur to the point that aid workers cannot reach tens of thousands of displaced people. They say a deal is vital before the rainy season begins in June when planting of food crops must be completed.
(Reuters)