Sudan demands guarantees for Darfur rebel’s release
August 8, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan will allow Darfur rebel figure Suleiman Jamous to be moved without risk of arrest if the international community guarantees he will not rejoin armed rebels in Darfur, a Foreign Ministry official said on Tuesday.
The United Nations has described him as a “consensus builder” among rebel commanders. He was the vital liaison between the world’s largest humanitarian operation and insurgents, and helped to ensure relief reached Darfuris.
“If the international community can guarantee that Suleiman Jamous will undertake only political work and will take part in the political process peacefully and will not return to those holding arms … we have no problem after that,” Foreign Ministry Under-Secretary Mutrif Siddig said.
“Give us those commitments and … we will … guarantee his release from Kadugli and his participation in the political process,” Siddig told a new conference in Khartoum.
Divided rebels fractured into more than a dozen groups following a peace deal last year which was signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions.
At the weekend U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim gathered many rebel commanders and groups together in Tanzania to form a common platform ahead of renewed peace talks with the government.
Elderly Jamous, who is well-respected among many commanders, tried to convince field commanders from the large SLA-Unity faction to take part in the Arusha talks after they refused to participate.
U.S. actress and Darfur activist Mia Farrow this week asked President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to take her freedom in exchange for Jamous, who is in need of urgent medical treatment not available in the U.N. hospital where he has been kept.
Last year the United Nations moved Jamous to South Kordofan neighbouring Darfur without informing Khartoum. The government said they would arrest him if he left the U.N. hospital.
Because of attacks and abductions, Darfur’s aid operation has had to scale back, with 500,000 people out of reach. Some 2.5 million were driven from their homes by the rape, murder, bombing and looting during more than four years of conflict.
More than 1,000 people have signed an online petition to release Jamous, started less than a month ago. It will be delivered to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday.
(Reuters)