South Sudan militia threatens not to disband

KHARTOUM, April 25 (AFP) — A government-backed militia in Sudan’s south has threatened not to disband unless it is included in the peace process established by a January deal between Khartoum and the main southern rebel group, reports said Monday.

Major General Paulino Matip said his South Sudan Defense Forces (SSDF) would not disarm unless the group was “included in the security arrangements” of the peace agreement between John Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the government.

“The SPLM is not the only power in the south,” Matip was quoted as saying by the English-language daily Khartoum Monitor.

He complained that his armed group had not been invited to attend reconciliation talks between southern Sudan factions and the government last week in Kenya.

“It was a Dinka-Dinka dialogue instead of a south-south dialogue,” said Matip, charging the conference had been dominated by Garang’s ethnic group at the expense of the Nuer, who predominate in the SSDF.

None of the Khartoum-backed militias took part in the Nairobi talks. The SPLM charged that the boycott had been ordered by the Sudanese government.

Matip asked for a “separate meeting” between his militia and the SPLM to discuss their status as an armed force.

The SSDF fought alongside the government against the SPLM during the last years of the more than two-decade-long civil war.

January’s peace deal, which foreign donors this month pledged billions of dollars to support, did not address the problem of militias or the ethnic divisions within the south.