Former rebel becomes governor of West Darfur
March 14, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — West Darfur’s new governor, a former rebel, arrived in the state capital on Wednesday welcomed by hundreds of supporters in a sign some aspects of an unpopular peace deal are being implemented.
Minni Arcua Minawi headed the only rebel force out of three that signed a May 2006 accord with the Sudanese government. The move entitled him to the governorship.
Other than his appointment, little of the deal has been implemented and many of the 2.5 million Darfuris who fled their homes to makeshift camps reject it.
“The wali (governor) said his first priority was to bring peace and stability to West Darfur,” Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) official Mahjoub Osman Abdallah told Reuters from el-Geneina, the state capital.
Darfur, an area the size of France, has been beset by bloodshed since 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms accusing Khartoum of neglecting the arid region.
Opposing the rebels are the Janjaweed, the local name for militia forces drawn from the nomadic Arab tribes, who are blamed for much of the killing.
Experts estimate 200,000 have been killed in the rape, murder and pillage in the Darfur region. The United States calls the violence genocide, a term rejected by the Sudanese government and one which European governments are also reluctant to use. The Sudanese government also denies accusations it backs the Janjaweed.
Minawi, who also became the fourth-ranking member of the presidency as special assistant to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has encountered difficulties since engaging in the peace process.
After the peace deal was signed the rebel groups splintered into a dozen factions, some of which later accepted the agreement. Minnawi has had tense relations with those factions, exacerbated after the Khartoum government granted many of the senior political posts to them over his preferred candidates.
He has also lost standing in Darfur since taking up his position in the presidency and his expression of frustration at Bashir’s “lack of political will” to implement the deal has yet to yield results.
West Darfur is the most lawless of all the Darfur states as it runs along the long and porous border with neighbouring Chad, also in the throes of its own insurgency. Chadian, Sudanese rebels, militias, bandits and government forces often cross the almost non-existent frontier.
Minawi complains that a transitional authority he should head and which should direct development and reconstruction in the remote west is still not functioning almost a year after the signing of the accord which envisioned it.
The world’s largest aid operation is under strain in Darfur because of banditry and attacks by mostly rebels and militia. Governmental restrictions have also hindered the almost 14,000 humanitarian workers.
(Reuters)