Former Sudanese rebels warned on Tuesday that a peace agreement signed last year is in danger of collapsing if the government rejects its demands following clashes that killed at least 10 people.
Eight members of rebel group the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and two Sudanese police officers were killed in the clashes on Saturday in the city of Omdurman, on the west bank of the Nile opposite Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.
The SLM was the only one of three Darfur rebel negotiating factions to sign the deal with the government in 2006.
The SLM is pressing for the release of 93 of its members it said were arrested after the clashes, the return of the bodies of those killed and the withdrawal of heavily armed government security forces still surrounding its headquarters in Omdurman.
”It is obvious what will happen if our demands are not met,” said SLM spokesperson al-Tayyib Khamis. ”This would endanger the peace deal. We may have to reconsider our position.”
After the peace deal, SLM leader Minni Arcua Minnawi became a senior assistant to the president with special responsibilities for Darfur. But he has complained the dominant National Congress Party (NCP) lacks political will to implement the peace accord.
The fighting broke out on Saturday when police surrounded the SLM headquarters, the state-run Sudanese Media Centre said. It said the SLM had refused to hand over to authorities members involved in a traffic accident two days earlier.
Khamis said police ignored the SLM’s attempts to resolve the problem peacefully and ”fired the first bullet”.
Sudanese security forces, backed by armoured personnel carriers and vehicles with mounted machine guns, have closed off streets leading to the SLM headquarters. They refused to answer questions about the incident and said journalists were barred from asking residents to describe what happened.
A Western diplomat said the incident was ”very serious” but he believed that both sides were trying to ”put a lid on it”.
The clashes occurred on the same day a senior SLM commander was killed in southern Darfur in an attack the SLM blamed on the government, and the first visit to Sudan by new United Nations humanitarian chief John Holmes, who wants Khartoum to ease bureaucratic obstacles hindering aid groups in Darfur.
Experts estimate 200 000 people have been killed and 2,5-million driven from their homes in Darfur to miserable camps in four years of rape, killing and pillage. Washington calls the violence genocide, a term Khartoum rejects.
Rebels and residents say the Janjaweed are backed by the government and blame them for widespread abuses in Darfur. The government calls them outlaws and says it has no links to the militias. — Reuters