Darfur rebels say willing to negotiate with Khartoum
July 11, 2008 (GENEVA) — One of the main holdouts from a Darfur Peace Agreement said Friday it wants to negotiate with Sudan’s government, but needs China, the United States and other powerful countries to pressure Khartoum to the table.
The Justice and Equality Movement, one of the province’s most powerful rebel groups, said it is hoping for a “political solution” to end nearly five years of fighting.
The group “is ready for a peace agreement which can address root causes of the conflict of Darfur and bring lasting peace,” spokesman Ahmed Hussein said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Hussein, part of a delegation in Geneva meeting with humanitarian agencies, said Sudan’s Arab-led government was responsible for the violence in Darfur. He declined to say why the JEM rebels, which refused to sign on to a May 2006 peace deal between the government and other fighters, had adopted a new position.
“Our movement is as strong as ever,” Hussein said of the JEM, which staged a bold attack on Khartoum’s twin city, Omdurman, in mid-May — the closest Darfur’s rebels ever got to the seat of the government.
The rebels were repelled, but more than 200 people were killed in the fighting, according to Sudan’s defense minister. Sudanese were shocked by the rebel assault, which happened hundreds of miles from their bases in the west.
Hussein said the attack was in response to military operations and what he termed the “many killings of civilians” by government-backed forces in Darfur.
The government has deployed between 20 and 30 militias around Darfur “to make the situation chaotic,” he said.
Sudan’s diplomatic mission in Geneva declined to immediately comment.
The conflict in Darfur erupted in 2003, when ethnic Africans in western Sudan took up arms against the central government in Khartoum, accusing it of years of neglect and unfair distribution of resources.
As many as 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced, with the government-backed janjaweed militia accused of some of the worst atrocities, including mass murder and rape.
NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
Hussein said the JEM rebels needed the help of powerful countries to get Sudan back to the negotiating table.
“We are talking about the United States, we are talking about the European Union,” he said. “We also are calling on the Chinese government to cease providing the government political support, diplomatic support and military support.”
Attempts to revive peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebel groups have so far failed to stem the violence.
SLM- Unity official, Sharif Harir, also in Geneva, said the SLM-Unity is “ready to engage immediately without any precondition as long as the international community presses the Sudan government.”
(AP)