Govt delays threaten Darfur peace deal- SLM Minawi

Nov 30, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Repeated delays by the Khartoum government in implementing the Darfur peace agreement have brought the accord close to collapse, the former rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) said on Thursday.

The SLM gave the government two weeks to start implementing the May agreement and said there was no point in waiting for other rebel groups to change their minds and join the process.

“Further delays can make the deal collapse because they would lead to the accumulation of negative feelings for the other party,” Abdel-Jabbar Dousa, the outgoing chief of the SLM committee following up the deal, told a news conference.

The SLM and the government are the only signatories to the deal, which has failed to stop the violence in Darfur, west Sudan. Other rebel groups have rejected it, demanding more compensation for war victims and more government posts.

SLM Secretary-General Mustafa Teerab told the government it had two weeks to begin implementing the deal.

“Our patience has limits. We give the government two weeks to make positive steps toward implementing the agreement,” he told Reuters.

Asked what the SLM would do if no progress was made during the two-week period, he said: “We will have a clear political stance.” He declined to elaborate.

HIGH TENSION

The deadline adds to already high tension between the former rebel group and the government. Minni Accua Minnawi, the leader of the SLM and Sudan’s top presidential adviser, told Reuters this week the government was re-arming militias in Darfur.

Presidential adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail denied this on Wednesday.

Dousa said government representatives had been absent from the majority of the 60 meetings with the group since the agreement was signed in the Nigerian capital Abuja, and only 7-1/2 of the agreement’s 515 articles had been implemented.

The government has denied it was putting any obstacles in the way of the deal going through.

Dousa also criticised the African Union for failing to turn up to several meetings with the SLM.

Boubou Niang, a senior AU official in Sudan, said his mission’s limited size had prevented its staff from attending all the joint meetings, and added that there had been absences on the part of the government and the SLM as well.

The African Union Peace and Security Council was expected to extend the mandate of the overstretched, ill-equipped 7,000-strong AU force in Darfur later on Thursday. The force’s mandate expires on Dec. 31.

Sudan has rejected a United Nations Security Council resolution authorising the deployment of 22,500 U.N. troops and police to stop the violence in Darfur.

Experts say around 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million forced to flee their homes since rebels took up arms against the government in 2003, charging it with neglecting their needs. The government, which armed militia groups to help suppress the revolt, says only 9,000 people have died.

Ismail said the government would start talks in December with rebel groups that had refused to sign the May agreement, but was awaiting confirmation from Eritrea which would host the negotiations.

(Reuters)