New JEM joins Sudan’s dialogue process
January 5, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – The New Justice and Equality Movement (NJEM), a breakaway faction from the mother rebel group Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) that fights the Sudanese Government in Darfur, has declared it was joining the ongoing national dialogue after Khartoum had consented to a number of preconditions it set earlier.
The NJEM leaderships arrived Khartoum a fortnight ago, but they refrained from joining the process until the government fulfils a package of prerequisites that include the publication of a list of rebels detained in the Nakhara battle (in South Darfur) between the Government forces and the JEM, in late April 2015.
“Our movement supports the dialogue process. We have met several political parties and forces engaged in the dialogue , we looked into the discussions of the dialogue’s six committees and exchanged views and ideas for future cooperation with those powers,’’ Younis told a press conference, held at the dialogue venue, the Friendship Hall in Khartoum.
Younis has appreciated the recent decision of President Omer al-Bashir to extend the ceasefire and the dialogue duration for one month, a matter he said, which can allow more dialogue holdouts to join in.
NJEM General Secretary Huthayfa Mohi Eddin told Sudan Tribune that the government had accepted most of the pre-conditions set by his movement and released all Darfuri students detained for political reasons and “even for criminal claims”.
He said the NJEM leadership had conducted a number of contacts with government officials, including the Presidential Assistant Ibrahim Mahmoud and chairperson of Darfur peace office Amin Hassan Omer whereby the movement’s pre-conditions were discussed at length and understood.
Mohi Eddin has further disclosed that they had reached an agreement with Omer to add new protocols to the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD), after due contacts with the joint UN and the AU mediator .
These additions, he said, are meant to accommodate the views of the NJEM with respect to “Darfur’s crucial issues pertaining to the refugees and IDPs and the cessation of the current unrest in the region.’’
He said they had also agreed with him upon the formation of a committee from the NJEM, the government and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to sort out the problem of the Nakhara battle POWs , pointing that his movement is also keeping POWs from the Government forces.
The NJEM broke away from JEM mainstream after the defeat of JEM fighters in South Darfur.
(ST)