Sudan says 210 Darfur rebels surrender
By Nima Elbagir
KHARTOUM, Aug 7 (Reuters) – More than 200 rebels from troubled western Sudan’s Darfur region surrendered their arms and were offered help to resume their normal lives, the governor of Northern Darfur state said.
But the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels denied on Saturday that any of its fighters had surrendered, saying the government had taken refugees from Chad, given them arms and pretended they were from JEM.
“210 of the armed insurgents from the Justice and Equality rebel Movement in Darfur delivered themselves today with all of their equipment to the military command in Tina (Tine), on the Sudanese-Chad border,” the statement from governor Osman Kebir’s office issued overnight on Friday said.
“The governor reiterates that the door is open to the absorption of all of the returnees from the armed insurgents in the different paths of the civil and military service and help would be given to them in the resumption of their normal lives,” the statement added.
JEM is one of two main rebel groups that took up arms in February last year, accusing the government of neglect and of arming Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn African villages in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The government denies the charge and says the Janjaweed are outlaws.
The fighting has displaced more than 1 million people, triggering what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
DENIAL
JEM Secretary-General Bahar Idriss Abu Garda said of the governor’s statement: “It is not correct, it is totally wrong. They tried to bring some people from inside Chad and tried to say they are some of the troops of the equality movement …”
“What happened actually is the government rented six cars from the civilians inside Chad and they brought some people from inside Chad and they gave them arms contending they were from JEM,” he told Reuters from Darfur.
Abu Garda also accused the government of continuing joint attacks with Janjaweed on civilians and rebel troops in violation of a ceasefire signed by both parties in early April.
“They killed 30 people, they burned eight villages and they attacked our troops (four days ago).” He added the fighting was in an area near Nyala, the capital of Southern Darfur state.
Both rebels and the government have accused each other of violating the April ceasefire in the area east of Nyala.
Ben Parker, spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said the conflict had probably claimed about 50,000 victims, although it was difficult to obtain exact numbers in remote Darfur, which is the size of France.
“We estimate that up to 50,000 people may have died as a result of the conflict directly or indirectly but it’s very hard to know exactly,” he said on Saturday.
A U.N. investigator said on Friday the Sudanese government was largely to blame for the Darfur humanitarian crisis and Khartoum’s responsibility for large numbers of killings in the region was beyond doubt.
POSSIBLE SANCTIONS
Sudan has about three weeks left to show the U.N. Security Council it is serious about disarming Janjaweed or face possible sanctions.
It has pledged to set up safe areas for uprooted Darfur villagers, work to disarm marauding militia and stop actions by its own troops in civilian areas, according to an agreement completed on Friday.
The pact, called a “Plan of Action for Darfur”, would also curb military movements by pro-government militia as well as rebels opposing them around the safe areas, to be set up in camps for displaced people and near towns so people can search for food, water and tend to animals.
The first draft of the agreement was reached on Wednesday between Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and U.N. envoy Jan Pronk. It is due to be signed on Monday.
Arab foreign ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Darfur on Sunday in Cairo in the presence of African Union (AU) Commission Chairman Alpha Konare.
New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Saturday the Arab League should condemn “the gross human rights violations by Sudanese government forces and the government-backed Janjaweed militias”.
It also said the pan-Arab body should make public its report from a May fact-finding mission to Darfur, which was not released after protests from Khartoum.
The AU is proposing sending up to 2,000 troops to protect its ceasefire monitors in Darfur and to serve as peacekeepers, but has yet to send an official request to Khartoum.
Sudan has said it would not accept foreign troops, meaning Western troops, in Darfur but it would accept African troops.
(Additional reporting by Opheera McDoom in Cairo)