Darfur rebels call for unity
2007-10-15 14:33
Khartoum - Darfur rebel factions that have not signed a peace deal with Khartoum are meeting in the southern city of Juba to try to unify their positions ahead of peace talks in Libya later this month.
Salva Kiir, first vice-president and head of the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement that formed a government with Khartoum, kicked off the meeting with a call for "unity of the factions and of the people of Darfur".
The meetings came with the southern semi-autonomous government gripped by its own crisis after it withdrew from the national unity government on Thursday, accusing Khartoum of failing to respect a 2005 peace deal.
A Darfur peace deal was signed in May 2006 between Khartoum and one of three negotiating rebel factions to end four years of conflict, which had killed at least 200 000 people, according to the United Nations.
Libya set for peace talks
Since then, the rebel groups had splintered into dozens of factions. UN envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson said last week that he was aware of 28 rebel groups.
Kiir urged participants to draw up "common demands and form a single delegation" ahead of the Libya peace talks on October 27, according to Jar al-Nabi Abdel Kader Yunes, who headed a delegation of commanders who split off from a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement headed by Abdel Wahed Nur.
Other rebel groups present were the Sudan Liberation Movement-Unity headed by Ahmed Teshafi and a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement, known as JEM-Unified Command, according to Yunes.
Two rebel chiefs from south Darfur known only as Mohammed Ali Kilai and "Commander Seddik", were also present, Yunes said, but could not immediately identify their factions.
Notably absent from the meetings were the SLM faction of Abdel Wahed Nur, which had said it won't attend the Libya talks unless a UN peacekeeping force was deployed first in Darfur.
Also missing were the main JEM faction led by Khalil Ibrahim and the SLM faction headed by Khamis Abdallah, said Yunes.
Conflict and famine in Darfur had left at least 200 000 people dead and two million displaced since Khartoum enlisted the Janjaweed to put down an ethnic minority revolt in 2003.
Aid groups had blamed the militia in particular for widespread rape, murder and destruction of villages. Khartoum said only 9 000 people had died in the conflict.