Sudan links rebels to plot to attack in capital
KHARTOUM, April 3 (Reuters) – A rebel group in impoverished western Sudan funded a plot to assassinate high-level government officials and blow up economic targets in Khartoum, a senior military official said on Saturday.
Ten military officers arrested this week indicated under interrogation that the plot was funded by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which is fighting government forces in the remote Darfur region, the official said.
The JEM said on Friday it planned to withdraw from peace talks in Chad with the Sudanese government.
The group is close to the opposition Popular Congress party of Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, who was detained this week and accused of inciting tribal tensions. The government says the party has helped to finance the rebels.
“The evidence…has led us to believe that the recent failed attempt at disruption was funded from outside by the Justice and Equality Movement,” said the senior military official, who asked not to be named.
Popular Congress members from Darfur helped plan the assassinations and attacks on the oil refinery and power stations in Khartoum, but it was mainly an ethnic movement directed by the JEM, he added.
The JEM is one of two rebel groups that launched a revolt in Darfur in February 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglecting the poor area and arming Arab militias to loot and burn African villages.
A U.N. official recently likened the Darfur conflict to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and said the fighting had created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
Turabi has denied helping the rebels but his criticism of the government’s conduct in Darfur is similar to that of rebels. They both say the government helped create the conflict by arming Arab militias bent on displacing African farmers.
Turabi was quoted on Saturday as saying that Sudan may be torn apart if reforms are not implemented.
Turabi was speaking to the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper a few days before he was arrested on Wednesday on accusations of inciting tribal tensions.
“Darfur has suffered greatly and because pleas to resolve the issue were neglected, its people were driven to military action,” Turabi told the Arabic-language daily. “We believe there are injustices in Darfur that must be treated but not through military action.”
The United Nations estimates that more than one million people are affected by the Darfur conflict, with about 100,000 refugees living in tents in Chad.
The JEM said on Friday it planned to withdraw from peace talks in Chad with Khartoum.
It said the Chadian authorities had refused to grant its political delegation entry visas to join the talks in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena.
The other rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement, said it was not aware of JEM’s withdrawal and would continue to try to push the talks forward.