Darfur rebels reject peace accord as deadline looms
May 31, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Talks intensified on Wednesday to convince two Darfur rebel factions to sign a peace deal to end a three-year-old conflict in Sudan’s violent west where tens of thousands have been killed.
A May 5 deal was signed by only one rebel faction leader, Minni Arcua Minnawi of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), and African Union mediators gave two other factions until Wednesday to sign or face possible U.N. sanctions.
“The day will end at midnight so we still have time and we still wish to see others joining the peace process,” said Noureddine Mezni, AU spokesman in Khartoum.
Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur, the other SLA faction leader, is in the Kenyan capital Nairobi but on Tuesday his group said he would not sign unless changes or additions were made to the text, conditions which the AU and Sudan’s government reject.
And the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) is being prodded by the Slovenian President Janez Drnovsek in Ljubljana. JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim also says he wants radical changes to the deal before signing.
The two factions say they want more political posts, better compensation for the victims of the conflict and a say in disarming the government-armed Arab militia, who are blamed for much of the violence on the ground.
While Minnawi’s faction has the most firepower in Darfur, Nur is from the region’s largest Fur tribe, and analysts fear he may cause a split along ethnic lines if he does not sign up.
Mezni said the AU Peace and Security Council would decide what action, if any, to take against those who did not sign. The council will meet in the coming days, but no date has been set.
AU Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit was not optimistic.
“I have no information to enable me to give you good news today,” he told Reuters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
But he added that a number of groups that had split from the Nur SLA faction and JEM had approached the AU saying they supported the deal.
More than two million, mostly non-Arab, Darfuris have fled their homes to miserable camps, which have become tinderboxes of violence as thousands demonstrate against the deal on offer.
The Sudanese Organisation Against Torture (SOAT) said police opened fire on Darfuris in the Otash camp in South Darfur on Monday, killing one and wounding three. In nearby Kalma, police beat and arrested dozens of demonstrators.
“SOAT strongly condemns the excessive use of force by the government security forces and calls on the government to acknowledge the major causes of this demonstration and to respond accordingly through raising awareness of the provisions contained in the (deal),” it said in a statement on Wednesday.
A U.N. report said on Wednesday most aid agencies and the AU had withdrawn from Otash camp following the violence and no one was assisting the injured.
The report added in Kalma, two other Darfuris were killed by unknown armed men. The AU also pulled out of Kalma after people there attacked and burnt their site in the camp, beating to death one of their interpreters earlier this month.
The cash-strapped AU has come under attack from those in the camps, frustrated at the 7,000-strong force’s inability to protect them from continued rape, looting and killing.
But the AU has a hard time defending itself. Last week a patrol was attacked, killing one soldier and wounding another. Five more soldiers were injured in another attack on an AU base in Masteri in south-west Darfur.
(Reuters)