SLM-Al Nur dismisses Addis Ababa meetings on rebel unity

August 20, 2009 (PARIS) — The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Abdel Wahid Al-Nur has distanced itself from a meeting held in the Ethiopian capital and sacked six commanders from the rebel group.

In a bid to reunite the different factions of the SLM, President Barack Obama’s special envoy for Sudan, Major General J. Scott Gration organized a two day meeting in Addis Ababa where all the SLM factions were invited.

However, the meeting of 18-19 August had only been attended by a delegation of SLM-Unity and another delegation claiming to represent the SLM-Al Nur. The other rebel SLM factions declined the invitation.

The chief commander of the SLA Al-Nur, Abdel-Gadir Abdel-Rahman Gadoora and his deputy Mohamed Adam Abdel-Salam Tarada, told Sudan Tribune by telephone that the six-person delegation which took part in the Addis Ababa meeting had not been empowered by the SLM/A to represent them and they were not even aware of their departure to the Ethiopian capital.

They also said the group led by former commander Ismail Rifa Jara is now relieved from the movement. “Our movement is not committed to the outcome of this meeting,” they further added.

The group of Jara and SLM-Unity agreed to negotiate without precondition with the Sudanese government to realize the demands of Darfur people, said a statement issued from Addis Ababa.

The two parties also agreed hold a meeting inside Darfur to reunite the two groups within 60 days.

The group led by Ismail Rifa Jara, from the Midoub ethnic group, comprised Abdallah Khalil, Abdallah Suleiman, Mubarak Yacoup, Adam Suleiman and Abdallah Ahmedi.

Earlier this month, Gration said he was working to unify Darfur rebels to speak with one voice.

However, the move of the US envoy seems in contraposition with the Libyan efforts which gathered more than five factions in what is called the Tripoli Group to negotiate with the Sudanese government with one political agenda and one delegation.

SLM-Unity is a member of Tripoli Group.

But the US envoy was critical of the Tripoli Group because it does not include representatives of Darfur’s major ethnic group, the Fur.

The Addis Ababa meeting was meant to include some people from the Fur tribe particularly to break the resistance of Al-Nur group. During his last month’s tour in Darfur, Gration also tried to persuade IDPs from the Fur to join the Doha peace process.

Initially the joint mediator Djibril Bassole sought to avoid the approach of past mediators who tried to unify rebel factions before peace talks, because this approach leads to involving different facilitators who may have different interests and objectives.

Last July, Egypt organized a parallel unity meeting for rebel factions but their attempt created differences between the members of Tripoli Group. Through its isolated attempt, Egypt — which has some more than 2000 troops in the Darfur peacekeeping mission — showed that it wants to be closely involved in the Doha process.

(ST)