US Bush invites SLM’s Minawi to support Darfur UN force
July 26, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — The US President George Bush asked the rebel leader of Sudan Liberation Movement to asked the leader of a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement to support the plan to bring UN force to Darfur, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The president asked Minawi to support a U.S.-backed plan to bring African Union peacekeepers in Darfur under the blue flag and helmets of the United Nations, said Frederick Jones, a National Security Council spokesman.
Bush told the rebel leader that his forces must refrain from violence and pressed him to forge an alliance with other factions in Darfur to broaden support for a peace agreement, Jones said.
President Bush met for about 40 minutes in the Oval Office with one of Sudan Liberation Movement leader Minni Minawi. He was the lone rebel leader to agree in May to a U.S.-brokered peace accord to end what the United States calls genocide in western Sudan.
Tens of thousands of Sudanese civilians have been killed over three years and 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes by Sudan’s government and its militia allies, known as the Janjaweed, in what Bush has labeled a genocide.
Bush and Minawi “had a frank exchange expressing concern for ending violence in Darfur,” Jones said.
Jones had no comment on how Minawi responded.
Minawi was persuaded by then-Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick to support the U.S.-brokered peace agreement, but the deal is unraveling because of infighting among rebel groups and violence against civilians.
Minawi faces rising opposition to his leadership among commanders in northern Darfur, including those from his Zaghawa tribe, according to the United Nations.
“He signed under incredible U.S. pressure and was probably given a lot of promises by the U.S. and the U.K.,” said Jemera Rone, a Sudan specialist with the advocacy group Human Rights Watch. “I’m sure he feels that the U.S. government now owes him and the people of Darfur quite a lot.”
A report issued earlier this month by the U.N. mission in Sudan cited allegations by displaced Sudanese that Minawi’s faction “was indiscriminately killing, raping women and abducting” civilians.
“That agreement is not working, and one of the many reasons is Minni Minawi,” Kenneth H. Bacon, president of the advocacy group Refugees International, wrote last week in a letter to Bush.
Refugees International said yesterday that Minawi’s forces have conducted a “reign of terror” in North Darfur by beating and raping women, killing young men and displacing thousands of people. Bacon asked Bush to “please stress” to Minawi that the rebel leader “must honor the terms of the Darfur Peace Agreement and stop fighting.”
(ST/WP)