Divisions emerged on Tuesday in the Darfur rebel group that signed a peace deal with Khartoum last week, with the top adviser to the movement’s chairperson urging the United Nations to freeze its implementation.
Ibrahim Ahmed Ibrahim, top adviser to Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) leader Minni Arko Minnawi, sent a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan charging that his boss had been pressured into signing Friday’s peace agreement.
”The pressure on the chairperson [Minnawi] on the days and nights prior to signing the agreement led to a unilateral decision to be made by him without consulting with the legislative council of the movement, as well as not consulting with his adviser nor with the negotiating team,” he said in the letter, a copy of which was given to Agence France-Presse.
”The chairperson has unilaterally signed this agreement and by doing so, he was forced to drop all suggestions brought forward by the movement to resolve the conflict,” Ibrahim said.
The agreement was signed on Friday in Abuja by the Sudanese government and the largest faction in the SLM, which is the main rebel group involved in the three-year-old Darfur civil war.
The deal was reached after United States Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and British Development Secretary Hilary Benn were dispatched to Nigeria to push for a deal.
Another rebel group, the Islamist Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), and a smaller faction of the divided SLM, led by Abdelwahid Mohammed al-Nur, refused to sign the UN- and African Union-sponsored deal.
Meanwhile, SLM spokesperson Mahjoub Hussein, also from Minnawi’s faction, said Ibrahim’s letter — which was copied to the US administration — was not representative of the entire movement.
”It’s not representative of everyone’s opinion in the SLM. Minnawi is the chairperson of the SLM and he signed,” he told AFP.
Ibrahim said the deal should be disregarded because it does not contain solutions to all aspects of the Darfur crisis, which has left up to 300 000 dead and 2,4-million displaced since February 2003.
”The agreement signed is incomplete and will not lead to real peace. On the contrary, the signed agreement will lead to more chaos and will complicate matters even further, having failed the minimum demands of the Darfur people,” he added.
He called on the international community to halt, reverse and investigate the circumstances leading to the signing of the agreement.
Minnawi, who was still in Abuja, refused to comment on the development when contacted by AFP.
Darfur, an arid desert region of western Sudan the size of France, erupted into civil war in early 2003 when armed local movements began fighting the Arab-led government in Khartoum, demanding more autonomy for the region.
The Abuja accord offers a referendum on the future status of the region and obliges Khartoum to disarm and neutralise its Janjaweed militia by mid-October.
It also provides for the rebel movements to be represented in the Sudanese government, and creates a fund for the reconstruction of Darfur. — AFP
