Darfur rebels deny Amnesty torture accusations
Aug 3, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Darfur rebels on Thursday denied accusations of a human rights group that they had killed and tortured opponents to a May peace accord which ended a three-year-old war that killed tens of thousands of people.
Amnesty International issued a statement this week accusing the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction led by Minni Arcua Minnawi of killing, raping civilians in July in Korma town in North Darfur who were against the peace deal.
In a separate statement, the African Union monitoring a shaky truce in the region said SLA Minnawi members in their compound in AU headquarters in el-Fasher had severely beaten an unidentified male and rebuffed AU efforts to intervene.
“We the Sudan Liberation Army have never attacked anyone and have never tortured anyone,” said Abdel Karim al-Sheikh, the head of Minnawi’s advance delegation in Khartoum.
These are the latest in a string of accusations against Minnawi’s troops which include the detention and torture of political opponents and civilians.
Minnawi denies the charges. But the United Nations airlifted his political opponent SLA official Suleiman Adam Jamous from Minnawi’s stronghold earlier this year after weeks in detention.
Al-Sheikh also sent a veiled warning to the AU who brokered the unpopular deal in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
“We have already met and spoken with the African Union about their issuing statements which are not helpful to the peace deal,” he said angrily.
Fighting in North Darfur between rebel factions has increased forcing thousands more to flee their homes since the deal was signed in May, the United Nations has said.
Only Minnawi’s faction signed the deal, of three factions negotiating. Tens of thousands of Darfuris have protested angrily and at times violently against the deal.
They say it does not give enough compensation to war victims, political posts and that the rebel movements need to have a monitoring role in the government’s plan to disarm mostly Arab militias known as Janjaweed.
Khartoum has pledged five times in the past two years to disarm the militias they originally mobilised to quell the revolt, but have failed to do so.
Janjaweed have been blamed for much of the rapes, killings and pillages that Washington calls genocide and which have forced 2.5 million people to flee their homes.
Khartoum rejects the charge of genocide but the International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating alleged war crimes in the region.
(Reuters)