ASMARA/KHARTOUM, 21 August 2007 — An Asmara-based umbrella group of Darfur rebel movements announced yesterday it would return to the war-torn western Sudanese region to unify its armed wings into a single force. Representatives of the United Front for Liberation and Development (UFLD) — an alliance of five factions formed last month — promised that their troops would work to protect aid workers and nongovernmental organizations.
“The leaders are going back to Darfur to unify all the armies into one group,” UFLD official Abdel Aziz told reporters in the Eritrean capital Asmara. “They will be protecting civilians and creating a secure area for NGOs doing their work in Darfur,” he added.
The move comes two weeks after most Darfur rebel factions met in Arusha, Tanzania, for talks sponsored by mediators from the United Nations and African Union to hammer out a common platform ahead of peace talks with Khartoum. However, Abdel Aziz stressed that final settlement negotiations with the Sudanese government could only take place if Suleiman Jamous, a veteran rebel who has been confined to a hospital and seen as a key negotiator, is released.
Meanwhile, Arab-led Darfur rebels accuse Sudan’s government of fomenting ethnic tensions in the war-torn region as a “divide and rule” tactic and insist the portrayal of Arabs as linked to the feared Janjaweed militia is wrong.
The United Revolutionary Force Front, a little-known Arab-led group opposed to the Khartoum government, says government troops have increased attacks on its positions in Darfur in recent weeks, including a raid on Aug. 11 in which the group says it captured 12 government soldiers.
“The government of Sudan is trying to separate the Arabs and the Africans, to put them on two sides against each other,” URFF chief Mohammad Ibrahim Mohammad Brima told Reuters in Chad.
