SPLM urges Sudan govt to accept UN troops
Sept 17, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s former southern rebel movement, in its strongest statement yet on Darfur, urged the government to allow United Nations peacekeepers into the war-ravaged region.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which signed its own peace deal with Khartoum in 2005 ending over two decades of north-south civil war, said it took a formal decision to back a U.N. force at a 3-day meeting of its top leadership in Juba in south Sudan.
“We reiterate our support for the deployment of United Nations forces in Darfur for the protection of civilians and the delivery of humanitarian services,” Yasir Arman, a senior SPLM official, said after returning to Khartoum.
The SPLM is now a partner in the Sudanese government. But the deal to end the war in south Sudan did not cover the separate conflict in the western region of Darfur, where political and ethnic violence has killed tens of thousands of people since flaring in 2003.
More than 2 million people have also been displaced by fighting by fighting between government troops, rebels and militias.
“We urge the (dominant) National Congress Party and other partners in the government of national unity to consent to the deployment of United Nations troops in Darfur,” Arman told Reuters.
“We want to avoid confrontations between Sudan and the international community, and we want to protect the civilians in Darfur,” he said.
PRESSURE GROWS
The SPLM decision coincided with rising international pressure on Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to accept the deployment of more than 20,000 peacekeepers to Darfur.
On Sunday, peace activists around the world staged a day of action to highlight the conflict in Darfur, which Washington has labelled as a “genocide”. The Sudanese government denies that.
Bashir has repeatedly refused U.N. troops, likening them to an invasion force bent on regime change in Khartoum that would result in an Iraq-style quagmire.
Arman said the SPLM leadership was also calling for an immediate ceasefire in Darfur, as well as for dialogue between parties to the conflict and reconciliation between different ethnic groups.
Additionally, the SPLM was pushing for dialogue between Sudan and the United States government to repair relations.
“We are ready to work and to support the realisation of a meeting between President (George W.) Bush and President Bashir, and more importantly for its success,” he said.
Bashir will attend a United Nations meeting on Darfur this week, opening the way for further talks on the issue, South Africa said on Sunday.
(Reuters)