Major Darfur rebel group not invited to Libya talks
Feb 21, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — One of Darfur’s main rebel factions complained on Wednesday it had not been invited to talks in Libya between Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Darfur rebels who have not signed on to a shaky peace deal.
The peace talks, expected to start on Wednesday, are aimed at trying to entice the National Redemption Front rebel coalition to join a 2006 peace deal between Khartoum and a faction of the former rebel Sudan Liberation Movement.
But the commander of another Darfur splinter group, which agreed last week to respect a truce and professes readiness to resume peace talks with Khartoum, said he had not been informed of the talks in advance, and dismissed them as a charade.
“We were not included in the efforts exerted by Libya and Eritrea. We had no invitation or foreknowledge of the talks,” said Jar el-Neby Abdel Karim, commander of a breakaway arm of the Sudan Liberation Movement that is not a signatory to the peace accord.
“If there is an initiative like this, they should have informed us and invited us. … We wouldn’t have refused. But we needed to have a clear picture of the situation.”
Also attending the talks are Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki and U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim.
Gaddafi is expected to try to persuade the NRF to join the peace deal for Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from homes since 2003.
Abdel Karim said Bashir did not understand the reality of Darfur’s rebel movements. Tens of thousands of Darfuris rejected the May 2006 peace deal because they want more political representation, compensation for war victims and guarantees that militias allied with the government will be disarmed.
“He (Bashir) can’t have a summit and say he’s dealing with the Darfur issue when he doesn’t even know who he’s dealing with. We’ll have to assume this is a stalling tactic, or a media frenzy, and not for the good of Darfur and the people of Darfur,” Abdel Karim said.
The NRF, a coalition of rebels that rejected the May peace deal, fragmented after disputes over whether to accept a truce negotiated last month by Bill Richardson, governor of the U.S. state of New Mexico, to which Abdel Karim’s group ultimately signed on.
Divisions among Darfur’s rebel factions have been a factor in delaying peace talks with Khartoum. On Sunday, Abdel Karim said a conference aimed at trying to unite rebel factions would be postponed to allow a new group that had broken away from the NRF to join the talks.
The conflict in Darfur has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The spiral of violence has been slowed only by a huge humanitarian operation, which aid workers warn is increasingly under threat.
Washington calls the violence genocide, a term European governments are reluctant to use and which Khartoum rejects. The bloodshed in Darfur, an area the size of France, has spilled over to Chad and Central African Republic.
Bashir has resisted pressure to authorise deployment of thousands of U.N. peacekeepers to support a 7,000-strong African Union mission in Darfur. He says the AU force is strong enough and the United Nations could give money and logistical help to a hybrid force.
(Reuters)