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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 02 June 2006

SUDAN: Darfur commanders ask to sign peace accord

ADDIS ABABA, 2 Jun 2006 (IRIN) - Senior members of the two rebel groups that earlier refused to accept a peace deal aimed at ending hostilities in the troubled western Sudanese region of Darfur have now expressed interest in signing the agreement.

Around 40 delegates from Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur's faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) - including field commanders and political officers - are in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to request the African Union (AU) to allow them to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), which their leaders failed to sign before the 31 May deadline.

Representatives of both rebel groups told journalists on Friday that they had decided to sign the peace agreement in order to end the crisis in Darfur.

"We have suffered a lot from the crisis. We came here to express our support for the peace agreement. We are not against our leaders' reasons not to sign the peace agreement, but we urge them to join the peace agreement," said JEM field commander Abdela Abdela Bakt.

While awaiting further instructions from the AU regarding the modalities that would allow them to sign the DPA, the two factions asked the pan-African body to give their leaders extra time to sign the agreement.

"We would like to ask the AU to give additional days for our leaders to put their signature. If they fail to do so again, we will sign the peace agreement," said Mohammed Adam Basi, political advisor to the SLM/A. "On our part, we are ready to sign it any time, as soon as the AU finalises the mechanisms."

No date has so far been fixed for the AU Peace and Security Council to discuss the adoption of an additional mechanism that would allow the factions to join the DPA.

The main wing of the SLM/A, led by Minni Minnawi, signed the AU-brokered agreement on 5 May, but the two rebel groups refused to sign the deal in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, prompting the international community to give them a deadline of 31 May. On Wednesday evening, however, al-Nur and JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim refused to sign the DPA, claiming it was unacceptable, as it did not fulfil their key political and security demands.

[ENDS]

This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006