Second Darfur rebel group sets terms for talks
By Nima Elbagir
KHARTOUM, July 26 (Reuters) – The second of the two big rebel groups in western Sudan’s Darfur region rejected new talks with the government on Monday until Khartoum carries out its commitments under a ceasefire agreement signed in April.
“We are willing to meet anywhere … but we are not willing to enter into political talks until what we agreed upon on April 8 is implemented,” said Adam Ali Shogar, a senior official of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM).
The other rebel group in the western region of Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), took a similar position towards political talks with the Khartoum government on Sunday.
Both groups left talks in Ethiopia this month when Khartoum turned down their preconditions for meeting which included the disarmament of Arab militias known as the Janjaweed.
Shogar, the SLM representative on a joint commission set up to monitor a ceasefire in Darfur, was speaking to Reuters from the Chadian capital N’Djamena, where the truce was agreed.
The April agreement included a ceasefire by both sides and a group of independent monitors to make sure it holds.
The two sides accuse each other of violating the ceasefire and the rebels added a demand that the government disarm the Janjaweed, which are accused of burning non-Arab villages and driving more than a million people from their homes.
European Union foreign ministers added to the international pressure on the Sudanese government on Monday when they urged the United Nations to consider sanctions if Khartoum fails to neutralise the Arab militias.
The Sudanese government has supported the Janjaweed in the past but now it says they are outlaws and that it has started a campaign to arrest and prosecute them.
SUPERFICIAL RESPONSE?
But critics of the government say the campaign is a superficial response to the international pressure to solve the Darfur conflict, which the United Nations has described as the world’s most serious humanitarian crisis.
Washington has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution which would impose sanctions on Janjaweed leaders and possibly also on the Sudanese government.
But Ghazi Suleiman, a prominent Sudanese human rights activist, said Khartoum could not disarm the Janjaweed without losing control of Darfur to the rebels.
“They (the Janjaweed) would ignore the government and the government would collapse and the rebels would take over Darfur and maybe kill the Arabs,” he told Reuters.
The conflict in Darfur is a byproduct of the struggle for power in Khartoum between the two rival branches of the Sudanese Islamist movement, the government on one said and imprisoned Popular Congress leader Hassan al-Turabi on the other, he said.
Britain and Australia, which helped the United States invade Iraq last year, have said they would consider sending troops to Darfur to enforce a peace agreement.
That idea is anathema to many Arabs in the north of Sudan, who suspect the Westerners have ulterior motives.
The Sudanese government newspaper al-Sahafa said on Monday the ruling National Congress party was going to lead a massive mobilisation campaign “to unite the internal front in facing attempts at foreign interference”.
It quoted a senior party official, al-Fatih Abdun, as saying the foreign campaign over Darfur could have a hidden agenda related to the U.S. Republican and Democratic parties campaigns for the presidential elections.