Darfur SLM-Nur rejects AU deal, wants UN mediation
June 3, 2006 (NAIROBI) — A rebel faction from Sudan’s Darfur said on Saturday the African Union (AU) had failed in its efforts to mediate in the regional conflict and called on the United Nations to take over the peace process.
The hardening stance of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction led by Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur is a blow to AU mediators who are desperate to broaden support for the fragile Darfur peace deal by getting Nur to sign.
“The African Union mediation team has failed to realise peace in Darfur,” said Nouri Abdalla, an adviser to Nur.
“The whole Darfur file, with regard to resolving the conflict in Darfur, we are asking the United Nations to take over the file,” he told Reuters in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
The demand is unlikely to be met as the United Nations has supported the AU and the accord it brokered.
The SLA and smaller rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) took up arms in early 2003 accusing the central government in Khartoum of neglecting Darfur, an arid region the size of France in western Sudan.
Khartoum backed militias known as Janjaweed to crush the insurgency. The ensuing attacks on villages, killings, rape, arson and looting have left tens of thousands of people dead and driven more than 2 million from their homes.
On May 5, the government and a faction of the SLA led by Minni Minawi signed a peace deal after two years of arduous talks.
Nur’s SLA faction and the JEM refuse to sign and face possible sanctions after they missed a May 31 AU deadline.
“The SLA has decided that any extension to the deadline to sign the proposed DPA (Darfur Peace Agreement) is a waste of time and unacceptable,” Abdalla said.
Nur’s faction has demanded that the AU attach supplementary documents addressing its concerns before it signs the deal. But AU mediators and the government have refused to add or change the deal signed by Khartoum and Minnawi.
The faction led by Minawi is stronger militarily, but the AU and others in the international community who support the peace agreement want Nur to sign because he represents the Fur, Darfur’s biggest tribe. They fear he may cause a split along ethnic lines if he does not endorse the accord.
“We asked for supplementary documents to be attached to the proposed DPA, and if that happened, our key fundamental demand, we were going to sign it,” Abdalla said.
“What we are saying right now is that we are rejecting the whole agreement altogether.”
He said the AU had failed because it was selective in applying pressure on the rebels to sign the peace Darfur deal.
(Reuters)