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| Africa Horn |
| Darfur rebel chief ready to battle Khartoum govt |
| 2010-12-14 |
| [Arab News] Minni Minnawi, the only Darfur rebel leader to have signed a peace deal with Khartoum, has accused the government of failing to implement the 2006 deal and says he is ready to do battle. Four years after Minnawi went it alone among Darfur rebel chiefs to sign a Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) with the Khartoum government, which showered him with official titles, the honeymoon is over. He predicted the south of the country would vote next month for independence, leaving northern Sudan to face its fate as a "failed state" and needing a total makeover. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction leader accused Khartoum of failing to implement the agreement and the Sudanese army of attacking his supporters in Darfur. Minnawi has moved to southern Sudan, abandoning his government-allocated office in Khartoum where he had been serving as "senior assistant" to President Omar Bashir. The government declared last week that its erstwhile partner was now an "enemy" and closed his Khartoum office, while the army attacked SLA supporters on Friday and Saturday. "Our relation with the government of Khartoum was the DPA agreement. Now they are canceling the DPA," Minnawi said in Juba, the capital of former rebel southern Sudan. "They stated that our forces have become a target of the SAF forces (Sudanese Army). That means they are pulling out of the DPA agreement," the SLA leader said. "I can say very clearly that whenever they target our forces we will also target their forces," said Minnawi. "We will defend ourselves." Sudanese army front man Sawarmi Khaled Saad blamed Minnawi's group for the latest festivities. "Minnawi's group began the rebellion and they are now a target of the armed forces," he said. Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... lawyers for a Sudanese campaign group launched a legal bid on Sunday to halt Sudan's referendum on southern independence, accusing organizers of mishandling the process, a move that could derail the Jan. 9 vote. A group calling itself the Society Organization Network instructed lawyers to take the case to court, accusing the referendum commission of placing SPLM members in senior posts and saying southerners in the north had been prevented from registering for the vote. "We delivered the papers to the constitutional court today," said lawyer Qurashi Al-Tom, who presented the case. "We are demanding a halt to the referendum process because we want to make sure we have a referendum that is free and fair." He said there were 250 southern plaintiffs with complaints ranging from being refused registration to vote to intimidation, arrest and kidnapping of relatives in the south. Southern leaders said the case had been stage-managed by the north's ruling National Congress Party (NCP) to sabotage the vote, which most analysts expect to result in secession for the oil-producing south. "It is an act of sabotage for the referendum," Yasir Arman, senior member of the South's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), said. "It is an open secret that the National Congress was preparing the ground for such an action - this will not resolve issues." Reporters were invited to attend a news conference given by the society by a senior NCP official. The NCP official denied any link to the group, which it says represents a network of southern civil society groups with thousands of members. |
| Posted by:Fred |