Beshir move: Declaration of war

2007-11-18 21:19

Khartoum - A Darfur rebel faction said on Sunday that a call by Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir to reopen auxiliary training camps was "a declaration of war" and that it was putting its troops on high alert.

"The Sudan Liberation Movement-Unity decrees a state of maximum alert for its troops following the Sudanese president's declarations about opening popular defence force training camps," the SLM-Unity said in a statement.

"We take this decision as a declaration of all-out war in Sudan," it said the day after Beshir ordered the reopening of auxiliary training camps to prepare for war amid an ongoing crisis with southern former rebels.

Walked out of the goverment last month

"We order the legitimate sons of the people to open their camps... not to declare war but to be ready," Beshir said in a speech marking 18 years of the popular defence forces unit linked to his political party.

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement, former southern rebels who once battled the auxiliary, walked out of the Khartoum government last month in protest at the non-application of a 2005 north-south peace deal.

They brand the popular defence forces a "militia" of Beshir's National Congress Party and want it dissolved - one of a series of disputes that saw talks between the SPLM and the north collapse last week.

The SLM-Unity "warns the Sudanese government against opening training camps in Darfur and says it will consider them to be military targets."

SLM-Unity is one of the few rebel factions attending peace talks in the Libyan city of Sirte that have failed to make any progress since they were convened last month.

More than 200 000 people have been killed in more than four years of conflict in Darfur from the combined effects of war, famine and disease while 2.2 million others have been left homeless by what the United States calls "genocide".

- SAPA