SLA-Minawi optimistic on peace deal despite setbacks

July 9, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The only Darfur rebel faction to sign a peace deal with the Khartoum government said on Sunday it was still optimistic despite the passing of key deadlines, continuing violence and widespread opposition to the deal.

Mahgoub Hussein, Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebel group spokesman and member of a team sent to Khartoum to implement the May 5 peace deal, said the agreement was widely accepted and that the Khartoum government was earnest in seeking peace.

“There is widespread acceptance of the deal among the people, and we must implement it so the people … will feel there’s a real change in their lives,” Hussein told Reuters.

“We think the government is working with earnestness in this matter and it wants to achieve peace in the province,” he added.

Since the African Union-mediated peace deal, which only one of three negotiating rebel factions signed, tens of thousands of people have staged demonstrations, at times violently, saying it does not meet their basic demands.

Fighting has continued despite the deal, and key deadlines, including receiving Khartoum’s crucial plan to disarm the Janjaweed and other pro-government militias by June 22, have been missed with no repercussions.

Hussein acknowledged the setbacks, and warned the Khartoum government against using delaying tactics and acting on the deal without clarity and transparency. He also said the peace deal needed to be better publicised to overcome public reservations.

“The movement has not yet received an official copy of the government’s plans pertaining to the disarmament of the Janjaweed…We think this is negligence, and one of the negative points we hold against the Sudanese government,” Hussein said.

He said the peace deal was open to amendment in order to encourage other rebel factions to sign, echoing calls from the United Nations’ top envoy in Sudan Jan Pronk to make additions the peace agreement.

Although not conditions in the peace deal, Hussein said the SLA would never retreat from its demand for U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, and for Darfur war criminals to be judged by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has repeatedly rejected a U.N. troop deployment in Darfur, and the Justice Ministry has said the ICC has no jurisdiction in the province.

Minni Arcua Minnawi, the leader of the SLA faction which signed the peace deal, is due to arrive in Khartoum within days, Hussein said. His visit will be the first since signing.

Tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million injured in more than three years of fighting in Darfur, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

(Reuters)