Sudan rebel group rejects Darfur summit

CAIRO, April 4 (AFP) — One of the main rebel groups in the troubled western Sudan region of Darfur on Monday rejected a planned summit in Egypt this month to discuss the two-year-old conflict.

Teenage Sudan Liberation Army fighters wearing amulets ( believed to bring good luck and protect against evil the person who wears them) look on while in the rebel held village of Bodong in North Darfur, March 3, 2005. (Reuters).

“Those mini-summits do not serve the cause of Darfur nor that of the Sudanese people,” Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) chief Abdel Waheed Mohammed Nur told AFP.

Egypt is to host a summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on April 20 with leaders from Chad, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and Sudan to try to find a solution to the Darfur crisis.

But Nur said he considered such summits were “damaging because the Sudanese government exploits those mini-summits like a mark of support which only increases its stubbornness.”

A similar five-way meeting over Darfur — also without the presence of the rebel movements — was held in Libya in October last year but did not produce any results.

The Sudanese government crackdown on an uprising launched by rebel groups in Darfur in February 2003 has led to what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst continuing humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands dead and 1.6 million people displaced.

Nur also called on Egypt to try to “convince the Sudanese government to hand over those responsible for war crimes in Darfur to the International Court of Justice and turn to the United Nations as the main mediator in finding a solution to the Darfur and Sudan crisis.”

After much diplomatic wrangling over which tribunal should be judging alleged perpetrators of war crimes in Darfur, the UN Security Council voted Thursday to refer them to the ICC in The Hague.

But the move upset Khartoum which branded the UN resolutions a violation of national sovereignty and insisted Sudanese courts were competent to try suspects.

An international commission of inquiry reporting to the United Nation has found that crimes against humanity were likely committed in Darfur.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Abul Gheit also indicated his discomfort Sunday with the resolution.

“On Darfur, the resolutions adopted recently have created a situation that could create complications… The international community must take care not to adopt measures or resolutions… that lead to the opposite effect of that wanted on an international, regional or Sudanese level.”