Bashir: Darfur war is over
2010-02-24 22:47
Khartoum - "The war in Darfur is over," President Omar al-Beshir said on Wednesday in a speech in Sudan's war-torn region, and said that 57 members of a key rebel group, 50 on death row, had been released.
Beshir, speaking in El-Fasher, capital of Northern Darfur state, made the announcement a day after his government and the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) signed a ceasefire and agreed to works toward a full peace agreement.
"The crisis in Darfur is finished; the war in Darfur is over. Darfur is now at peace," Beshir said of the seven-year conflict that devastated the region.
"The combat of arms is over, and the one of development now begins," added the president, who is the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Darfur.
"We need to make more efforts to develop Sudan and Darfur," he said.
The freed prisoners represented half of the group's members in jail, Justice Minister Abdel Basit Sabdarat said outside Kober prison on the outskirts of Khartoum.
Death row
"We have just freed 50% of those detained" in connection with an unprecedented rebel attack on Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman in May 2008, Beshir confirmed.
The fighting resulted in the deaths of 220 people and the capture of a large number of rebels. Special courts were later set up to try the suspects and 105 were condemned to death.
Sabdarat said 50 of the 57 released had been on death row.
On Saturday Beshir said the death sentences would be quashed and that 30% of its militants would be freed after the ceasefire deal, which was signed on Tuesday in Doha.
Sudan and the Jem, Darfur's main rebel group, signed the agreement and a framework accord in the Qatari capital with a final peace deal due to be signed by March 15.
Beshir on Tuesday called the Doha agreement "an important step toward ending war and the conflict in Darfur".
Power sharing
On Saturday, government and Jem representatives inked a framework agreement in Chad proclaiming a ceasefire in the seven-year-old conflict.
The 12-point provisional deal offered the Jem, long seen as Darfur's most heavily armed rebel group, a power-sharing role in Sudan, where presidential and legislative polls are due in April.
"Article three stated that Khartoum and the Jem agreed on "the participation of the Jem at all levels of power [executive, legislative...]," according to a copy of the accord seen by AFP.
The two sides also agreed on Saturday that the Jem would become "a political party as soon as the final agreement is signed between the two parties" by March 15.
The Darfur conflict has claimed about 300 000 lives and displaced 2.7 million people, according to UN figures, since it erupted in February 2003. Khartoum puts the death toll at 10 000.
Ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Khartoum and state-backed Arab militias, demanding greater access to resources and power.
'Devils on horseback'
The government responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, a militia of mounted gunmen dubbed "devils on horseback" which has been blamed for atrocities including murder, rape, looting and burning villages.
The conflict also saw a splintering into small factions of rebel groups, making efforts to seal lasting peace a massive task.
The ceasefire with the Jem closed the most active front in Darfur, but smaller rebel groups such as the Sudanese Liberation Army of France-based exile Abdelwahid Nur have refused to enter talks with Khartoum.
Nur on Wednesday blasted the truce.
"What peace is it? A ceremonial peace... a struggle to get government posts, but one not interested in fundamentals: guaranteeing the security of the population."
The ceasefire accord "totally ignores the security of the Darfur population", Nur, who lives in exile in France, told AFP by phone.
One of the smaller factions, the Jem-Democracy, also rejected the accord, calling it biased.
However, on Tuesday four of the smaller groups announced they were merging to form the Liberation Movement for Justice and also hoped to agree a deal with Khartoum.
Beshir's adviser on Darfur, Ghazi Salaheddine, who inked the framework accord with Jem leader Ibrahim on Saturday, has also said he hoped other rebel groups would begin talks with the government.
On Monday, Beshir said this year will "mark a new Sudan, stable and peaceful, a united Sudan, by the will of its people".