Rebels threaten AU in Darfur

KHARTOUM – Darfur rebels have vowed to fight African Union peacekeeping forces in the troubled western Sudanese region if President Omar al-Beshir is elected chair of the pan-African body, reports said on Saturday.

“The African Union will not continue acting as a mediator if its chairmanship is assumed by the Sudan,” said Jar al-Nabi, the military commander of a hardline faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) which rejected a peace deal signed in May 2006 to end the violence. “If the Sudan becomes president of the AU, we will certainly fight the AU forces,” he told the daily Al-Rai Al-Aam.”The African Union forces will become a party in the ongoing conflict in the region,” SLM official Isam Eddin al-Haj was quoted as saying.The National Redemption Front, which groups factions that refused to sign last year’s peace deal, already warned it “suspend cooperation with the AU in Darfur if (Sudanese President Omar) al-Beshir takes over the AU chairmanship,” in a statement released from its rear-base in Eritrea on January 16.Sudan is expecting fellow African heads of state to honour a promise made at last year’s summit in Khartoum to give it the 53-nation bloc’s chairpersonship when they gather in Addis Ababa on Monday.Sudan had been due to be elected chairperson in 2006.But to spare the blushes of other African leaders in the face of a chorus of international criticism over Darfur, it withdrew its candidacy and Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso was elected in Beshir’s place.Around 7 000 AU military observers are deployed in Darfur to try to keep the peace but the under-equipped and cash-strapped contingent has failed to stem the bloodshed.The four-year-old conflict between ethnic minority rebels and government troops and their Arab militia allies has led to the deaths of more than 200 000 people and seen some two million flee their homes, according to UN figures.Beshir was due to travel to the Ethiopian capital on Saturday in readiness for Monday’s summit.Nampa-AFP”If the Sudan becomes president of the AU, we will certainly fight the AU forces,” he told the daily Al-Rai Al-Aam.”The African Union forces will become a party in the ongoing conflict in the region,” SLM official Isam Eddin al-Haj was quoted as saying.The National Redemption Front, which groups factions that refused to sign last year’s peace deal, already warned it “suspend cooperation with the AU in Darfur if (Sudanese President Omar) al-Beshir takes over the AU chairmanship,” in a statement released from its rear-base in Eritrea on January 16.Sudan is expecting fellow African heads of state to honour a promise made at last year’s summit in Khartoum to give it the 53-nation bloc’s chairpersonship when they gather in Addis Ababa on Monday.Sudan had been due to be elected chairperson in 2006.But to spare the blushes of other African leaders in the face of a chorus of international criticism over Darfur, it withdrew its candidacy and Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso was elected in Beshir’s place.Around 7 000 AU military observers are deployed in Darfur to try to keep the peace but the under-equipped and cash-strapped contingent has failed to stem the bloodshed.The four-year-old conflict between ethnic minority rebels and government troops and their Arab militia allies has led to the deaths of more than 200 000 people and seen some two million flee their homes, according to UN figures.Beshir was due to travel to the Ethiopian capital on Saturday in readiness for Monday’s summit.Nampa-AFP