UNAMID chief said to visit south Sudan over Darfur rebels as Khartoum warns of delay to expel them

January 10, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The special representative of the UN-AU Hybrid Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Ibrahim Gambari, has announced he will soon visit the semi-autonomous region of south Sudan to hold talks with its leader Salva Kiir Mayradit on how to expel Darfur rebel groups from the region, according to Sudan’s official news agency SUNA.

SUNA reported on Monday that Gamabari told the acting governor of South Darfur State, Abdul Karim Musa Abdul Karim, in Nyala that he intends to visit the south’s capital Juba and hold talks with Kiir over ways of expelling Darfur rebel groups.

Tension between north and south Sudan over Juba’s alleged support of Darfur rebel groups has recently subsided after South Sudan leader Kiir declared that he would expel rebel groups in the region.

“No opposition in the north shall take Juba as a base,” Kiir was quoted as saying last week.

South Sudan is currently housing Minni Arcua Minnawi, who is the only Darfur rebel leader to sign a peace accord with the Sudanese government in Abuja in 2006. But Minnawi later effectively defected from the government and accused Khartoum of stalling the peace agreement.

North Sudan officials have consistently issued stern warnings to the south over harboring Darfur rebels. At one point, North Sudan foreign minister Alir Karti threatened Juba with war over this issue.

“If the South Sudan government wants to start its new era with a war that will be the case if it harbors Darfur movements”, said Karti in a press conference in Khartoum on 28 December.

South Sudan is widely expected to become a fully independent state as a result of an ongoing referendum vote due to end on January 15.

Meanwhile, a member of the northern government’s delegation to Darfur peace talks has urged Juba to execute its promise to expel Darfur rebels, warning that failure to do so will send negative signals and encourage other rebels groups to ramp up their armed activities against the government.

Omar Adam Rahmah, a member of the government’s negotiation delegation to Darfur peace talks in the Qatari capital of Doha, told the pro-government website Sudan Media Center (SMC) on Monday that the continuous existence of Darfur rebels in the south despite Kiir’s decision to expel them would reflect negatively on the headways made in the peace talks.

Rahmah urged the Government of Southern Sudan to translate its promise into action and order Darfur groups out, saying that the south’s security will not be achieved through Darfur rebels and that the south needs north Sudan in terms of security and shared interests.

Sudan is currently engaged in peace talks with one Darfur rebel group in Doha, but the talks have so far failed to yield an agreement. The talks are boycotted by the two major rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement of Abdul Wahid Moahmed Nur.

The conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur broke out in 2003 when rebels belonging mostly to African ethnic groups took up arms against Khartoum, accusing it of marginalizing the region in terms of development and wealth sharing.

In response, the government launched an abusive counterinsurgency campaign that resulted in the death of 300,000 people and displacement of more than 2 million, according to UN figures.

(ST)