Sudan rebels dismiss claims of losses
By ANDREW ENGLAND, Associated Press Writer
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Insurgents suffered heavy losses in bombing raids that targeted rebel camps along Sudan’s border with Chad, a senior Sudanese government official said Tuesday.
The attacks in recent days are part of a government bid to crush the insurgency in Darfur, an impoverished region in Sudan’s west.
Gutbi el-Mahdi, President Omar el-Bashir’s political adviser, told The Associated Press the rebels suffered “a lot of losses.”
But the rebels dismissed those claims, saying the government offensive killed mostly civilians.
“The government is bombing all civilians and destroying villages and water resources,” Sudan Liberation Army spokesman Hassan Mandela said by telephone from Darfur. “We are now fighting the government day and night.”
Government forces have destroyed 180 villages in the past week, Mandela said.
El-Mahdi denied accusations the government was targeting civilians.
Reporters in the region heard loud explosions Tuesday as planes circled over the border town of Tine. El-Mahdi said there was a rebel camp in Tine on the Sudanese side of the border.
Refugees fleeing into Chad have said their villages were destroyed by bombs and raids by Arab militia. They accuse government forces of a scorched earth policy in fighting the insurgency.
The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that it had registered thousands of new refugees along the Chad-Sudan border. Refugees from the village of Habila told U.N. officials that aircraft and helicopters bombed their homes 10 days ago. Armed men then entered the village on horses and camels, stealing cattle and chasing people away, the refugees said.
Two rebel groups – the SLA and the Justice and Equality Movement – have been fighting the government since early last year. U.N. agencies say more than 600,000 people have fled the violence, with 95,000 of them crossing into Chad.
El-Mahdi said the government was isolating the rebels and talking to community leaders to solve the region’s problems. He said the rebels were making unreasonable demands, including self-determination for Darfur and a large share of Sudan’s oil wealth.
The rebels say they are fighting for an equal share of the nation’s wealth and greater political representation, not self-determination.
Zakaria Mohammed Ali, secretary-general of the Justice and Equality Movement, said the government wanted to deal with the rebellion as a “security problem,” not a political issue.
“The people in the central government do not want power and economic sharing, this is our issue,” Ali said.
The insurgency in Darfur has worsened as the government inches closer to peace with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, in the south. Opposition politicians say the deal between the south and the government could spur unrest in other areas where people feel marginalized.
“We welcome any peace to be signed … but we want peace for the Sudan to be comprehensive. It’s not logical to have peace on one side when war has broke out elsewhere,” the SLA’s Mandela said.