Darfur’s Minawi threatens to pull out of peace deal
Dec 5, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The only Darfur rebel group that signed a peace agreement with the government issued a veiled threat Tuesday to pull out of the deal if Khartoum-backed militias continue to be armed and to attack civilians.
The comments from Minni Minawi’s Sudan Liberation Movement came as pro-government janjaweed militia looted the central market in the north Darfur capital of Al Fasher, clashing with Minawi fighters, killing at least two.
Minawi, who signed the Darfur Peace agreement in May with Khartoum and has since become the senior adviser to the president, refused to go his office at the presidential palace on Tuesday after denouncing the attacks in Al Fasher, which under the peace deal is supposed to be under government control.
“This is a very strong signal” to the government, Minawi’s spokesman Saif Haroun said. “If there is no change soon, our options as a rebel group are on the table.”
SLM chief of staff Mohammed el Beshir said the former rebels were waiting for the government to immediately rein-in the janjaweed groups still threatening Al Fasher. “We need to see a change now,” he said on the telephone.
Janjaweed paramilitary groups reportedly began looting the central market in Al Fasher on Monday. Former SLM rebels stationed in the north Darfur capital clashed with the militia, said the spokesman for the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, Noureddine Mezni.
“The AU troops deployed in the market to cease the fighting,” he said. AU peacekeepers evacuated five gravely injured people, including two SLM fighters who died of their wounds at the hospital, Mezni said. Reports of more casualties among rebel and janjaweed ranks could not immediately be confirmed.
The situation remained extremely tense in Al Fasher on Tuesday, the AU said. “We have information that the town and the AU garrison could be attacked in the coming hours” by other rebel factions who didn’t sign the peace agreement, Mezni said.
The AU has 7,000 troops deployed in Darfur to monitor a cease-fire that has all but collapsed since May amid increased rebel infighting and an upsurge of pro-government militia attacks against civilians. The Sudanese government has resisted pressure to allow in a much larger force that would include U.N. peacekeepers.
Fighting began in the remote Darfur region of Sudan’s far west in 2003 when rebels stemming from tribes of ethnic African villagers took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government. Khartoum is accused of having unleashed janjaweed militia in response. The janjaweed are blamed for the worst atrocities in a conflict that has already killed over 200,000 people and displaced 2,5 million.
Khartoum denies backing the militia, which it describes as rogue bandits.
(AP)