JEM leader accuses Sudan and Chad of plotting to divide his group
August 17, 2012 (KHARTOUM) — The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) accused the Sudanese and Chadian governments of actively working to create divisions within the group and urged its membership to remain committed to the unity of the movement.
The rebel leader, without citing any names, added that the plotters, in order to implement their scheme, called on pockets of resistance and “brokers of revolutions” to divide the Movement and to form a new militia without any political project.
Gibril, on 9 August, relieved Bakheit Abdallah Abdel-Karim (Dabajo) from his position as JEM commander in chief, amid rumours of his involvement in an attempt to create a new dissident faction with Chadian support.
Sources say that JEM leading members close to the Chadian president, like Arkou Dahia and Mohamed Abashar Ahmed, were actively involved in the operation from the Chadian capital.
Abashar was already cited in a previous “plot” aiming to poison JEM’s late leader Khalil Ibrahim while he was in Tripoli, Libya. But he was released by Gibril Ibrahim after the death of his brother. Khalil was killed during an aerial raid on his convoy while he was heading to South Sudan in December 2011.
The statement also said the purpose of this move is to bring the breakaway faction to sign the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD).
Asked by telephone, about why the JEM leadership does not react in an explicit manner on this attempt to break the Movement, Gibreel Adam Bilal, the official spokesperson of the rebel group, said despite what is taking place on the ground “there is no official statement about a dissidence.”
He added that contacts are taking place to amend the situation and to avert the ongoing attempt to break Darfur’s largest rebel movement.
Bilal further said the Sudanese government, despite the severe financial crisis the country is experiencing, is ready to pay a huge amount of money to see this dissent materialized. He also said the Chadian president sent some people to the border to encourage the dissent.
Last week, a leading member in the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), a signatory of the DDPD with the Sudanese government, called on Dabajo to join the Doha peace process, stressing there are many vacant positions in the federal and regional institutions for them if they sign the peace document.
However, the former commander in chief of the rebel group remains silent and he did not yet issue any official statement.
(ST)