Khartoum’s relations with peace partners clouded by clashes
Dec 5, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Khartoum’s peace deals with former rebels were looking more fragile than ever after deadly incidents in the south and west of the country threatened to revive old enmities.
Minni Minnawi, leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) said Tuesday an attack on a Darfur market on Monday which killed two people was a serious breach of the peace deal he signed with Khartoum in May and said it threatened his former rebel movement’s participation in the government.
The SLM signed a peace deal with Khartoum in May to end violence in Darfur, a vast western region devastated by almost four years of violence and famine, but two other rebel factions rejected the deal.
Nothing was done to put an end to attacks by the pro-government Janjaweed militia in Darfur, Minnawi said of Monday’s attack by pro-government militias on a cattle market in the key town of El-Fasher in north Darfur.
He described the situation there as “critical” and accused President Omar al-Beshir’s ruling National Congress Party of arming and financing the Janjaweed, which were supposed to be disarmed according to the peace deal.
“We risk returning to the point of departure,” he warned.
The African Union mission (AMIS), which is currently operating in Darfur said it intervened quickly after the clashes and transported five wounded members of the SLM to their hospital, but two later died of their wounds.
But the African mission said it had received information of possible attacks on its headquarters, just outside the city, by the militias. The United Nations has already evacuated its staff from El-Fasher, sources in Darfur said.
Sudanese authorities played down the latest violence and said it was the result of tensions between local merchants and a group of military intelligence officers who had come to purchase goods from the market.
But Minnawi condemned Monday’s clashes as a breach of the peace accord, saying they were just the latest in a string of violations, including the destruction of 48 villages by the Janjaweed.
Khartoum’s relations with its southern peace partners is also showing cracks after independent militias last month clashed with southern government forces in the town of Malakal, 700 kilometres (435 miles) south of the capital, leaving 100 people dead.
Under a peace deal signed in 2005 between Khartoum and the southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the old civil war militias were supposed to choose to join either the official forces of the northern government or the autonomous southern administration.
But some militias refrained from joining either force, threatening the fragile partnership in the coalition government.
In a sign of heightened tensions, southern MPs have announced their boycott of parliament sessions starting Monday, until Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein clarifies Khartoum’s position on the clashes.
(AFP)