Darfur violence threatens to spread to Sudanese capital
March 25, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A moribund Darfur peace deal was in danger of collapse on Sunday after a deadly incident between former rebels and police, as the war in the western Sudan region threatened to spread to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
“The attack by the police and security forces on the residence of our men was a violation of the ceasefire enshrined in the Abuja peace agreement which we have signed with the government,” Tayeb Khamis, a spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), told AFP.
“We are prepared to resume the war and from Khartoum, if the government wants to fight,” said Khamis, whose group is the only one of three Darfur rebel groups to have signed the Abuja accord with Khartoum in May 2006.
According to Khamis, the incident broke out when former SLM rebels refused to hand over two of the group’s members who were wanted by the police regarding a “traffic problem” earlier in the week.
The ensuing shootout left 11 people dead — two policemen, eight SLM supporters and a woman, he said.
The clash was the first in Khartoum between the SLM and the government as well as the worst violence to hit the city since riots sparked by the death of southern rebel leader John Garang in August 2005 killed over 45 people.
SLM leader Minni Minawi charged that state agents had deliberately provoked the incident in what he said was “an attempt by the government to sabotage the peace process”.
“What happened reveals a will to move from peace to a state of war,” Minnawi said at a press conference in Khartoum, where the SLM opened an office in the wake of the 2006 agreement.
Minawi, who was appointed presidential adviser under the deal he signed last year, warned his movement would “only pursue peace if the findings of the investigative commission, whose members should be impartial, are take into account.”
The SLM and witnesses said no further incidents were reported on Sunday.
Khartoum state police chief Mohamed Naguib al-Tayeb said residents of the neighbourhood where the clashes erupted had repeatedly complained about the threat posed by the presence of armed SLM members.
He also said some local residents complained that some SLM members “engaged in obscene and drug-taking practices.”
Quoted by the state media, Interior Minister Zubeir Beshir Taha described the incidents as “regrettable” but insisted that they would not affect the peace process.
He said he had discussed the incidents with Minawi and emphasised that peace was “the most important issue and should therefore be maintained.”
Minawi’s SLM was one of two rebel groups that launched a revolt against the central government in western Sudan’s Darfur region in February 2003 to demand a greater share of the country’s resources.
Splinter groups flourished after the peace accord and violence spiraled.
According to the United Nations, at least 200,000 people have been killed and two million displaced since the conflict erupted. Some sources say the death toll is much higher.
The Khartoum regime stands accused of genocide by Washington for its repression of the Darfur rebellion and has consistently rejected the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to stem the bloodshed.
(AFP)