Darfur crisis due to ethnic conflict of interests – SPLM official

KHARTOUM, Aug 16, 2004 (Al-Sahafah) — The political adviser of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement [SPLM], Mansur Khalid, has said that what is taking place in Darfur is not ethnic cleansing but conflict of interests by ethnic groups.

He said concentrating on Janjawid alone will not solve the crisis since the Darfur problem is an old one and existed since the reign of Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi.

He said the [National] Salvation [Revolution] went wrong on ways of solving it but said the problem does not require military intervention. Khalid said the problem can be solved locally and regionally since it was less complicated compared to the problem of the south.

In an interview with a Qatari newspaper, Al-Sharq, he said the SPLM was not escalating the crisis, saying the government together with SPLM were committed to ending all the crises in Sudan. Khalid said linking the crisis to interference by Israel was just a mere Arab weakness.

He said the SPLM was preparing for the elections by making intensive consultations among southern leaders in the framework of the south to south dialogue. He denied existence of differences between SPLM leaders and said any violations of the of coming peace agreement will lead to secession.

Translated from Arabic by the BBC Monitoring Service