Darfur rebel JEM threatens to topple eastern Sudan peace talks

June 13, 2006 (ASMARA) — A rebel group in western Sudan’s Darfur region threatened on Tuesday to scuttle peace efforts in the country’s troubled east if excluded from planned negotiations.

“We do not accept the decision to exclude us from the talks between the Eastern Front and Khartoum,” Khalil Ibrahim, leader of Justice Equality Movement (JEM) said in Asmara.

“Khartoum will not get peace if we don’t participate in the talks,” Ibrahim said, warning that JEM’s presence in the east could not be ignored.

The Sudanese government and the Eastern Front fighters — grouping rebels from the region’s largest ethnic group, the Beja, along with Rashaida Arabs — are set to open talks later Tuesday in a bid to end a simmering civil conflict in eastern Sudan.

Ibrahim said he had told Eastern Front rebels that they stood to benefit from JEM’s group’s participation in the peace negotiation.

“If we join the Front in the talks they will get more,” he said. “They need experience and political awareness — on the other side, there is a well-trained group from the government.”

The JEM, which is active in the conflict-ravaged western region of Darfur, has also emerged as a key player in eastern Sudan. It demands a seat at the presidency as part of any peace settlement, but has not been invited to the Asmara talks.

The Eastern Front, formed last year, controls an area on the Sudanese-Eritrean border around the town of Hamesh Koreb and has been involved in low-intensity guerrilla activity against the Khartoum government for years.

Sudan says the latest push to defuse the crisis in the east is part of a larger effort to build on peace agreements reached recently with rebels other parts of the country, Africa’s largest.

A peace accord was signed in January 2005 to end a 21-year-old north-south civil war, and efforts are still under way to stabilise the western region of Darfur after rebels there signed a deal with Khartoum last month.

(ST)