Two rebel factions in Darfur sign peace deal

July 28, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Two rebel groups in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army-FREES (SLA-FREES) and the Justice and Reform Movement (JRM), signed a peace deal on Wednesday in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State.

The ‘agreement was mediated by a reconciliation committee composed of native administrators and local leaders,’ according to the United Nations – African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) who observed the signing.

Both groups are splinter organizations: JRM from Darfur’s largest rebel groups the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and SLA-FREE from the Sudan Liberation Amy – Abdul Wahid (SLA-Abdul Wahid) named after its leader Abdul Wahid El Nur.

SLA-FREES split from SLA-Abdul Wahid in February this year following clashes with JEM.

“This faction emerged after clashes between the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and SLA-Abdul Wahid (SLA-AW) in Jebel Moon in February 2010,” said the Small Arms Survey Sudan an independent research project located at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

The northern part of Jebel Moon was controlled by JEM; the southern by SLA-AW.

The clashes ended with the defeat and expulsion of SLA-AW, which moved to Silea and then Geneina. In Geneina the rebels made an alliance with the Sudan government—retaining the name ‘SLA’ however—and returned to Jebel Moon after government forces captured the area from JEM in April. They reportedly hope to join the Doha process;’ the small arms reported.

SLA-Abdul Wahid was formed from the original SLA, which was the first rebel group to take up arms against the government in 2003 claiming that Darfur was being discriminated against politically and economically by Sudan’s central government in Khartoum.

The movement divided into two factions in November 2005 around Abdul Wahid El Nur and rival leader Mini Minawi.

SLA-Minawi was the only Darfur rebel group to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement in 2007, which made Minawi a Senior Presidential Assistant to the Sudanese President Omer Al Bashir.

The Small Arms Survey Sudan said the Justice and Reform Movement are a ‘small and highly localized splinter of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)… led by al Din Mohamed Mahin, who left JEM in April–May 2010 during a government offensive against the Jebel Moon heartland of his Missiriya Jebel tribe (a group of Arab lineage which lost the Arab language several generations ago).

The government offensive drove JEM out of most of Jebel Moon, leaving the Missiriya Jebel exposed. Mahin and his colleagues complained that they were not only left unprotected by JEM; they were marginalized within the group. United Nations reports say the Missiriya Jebel grew disaffected because of JEM’s rough treatment, extortion, and destruction of wells ‘as a retaliation measure against locals’.

In May, fighting broke out anew between the JEM and the government after they walked out of the talks.

According to UNAMID, May was the deadliest month since its deployment began in 2008 with 440 people dead in fighting between rebels and government forces, 126 in tribal violence, and 31 in other violence, including murder.

This death toll fell to 221 in June, which is still significantly above the average for the last two years and half years.

The UN estimate that around 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million displaced since the conflict began in 2003.

Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir, who was indicted for three acts of genocide in the region earlier this month, has put the figure at round 10,000.

(ST)