In his first comment on the fighting in North and East Darfur states a few days ago, the leader of Sudan Liberation Movement, Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM) has accused the Sudanese government of attacking their positions in the region in an attempt to impose its solution to the 14 year conflict.
“The brutal regime of the National Congress (Party), as usual, mobilized the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militias in a desperate attempt to hit the SLM in its strongholds and impose peace through the barrel of the gun,” said Minnawi in a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Saturday.
“Peace will never be achieved as long as the homeland is held hostage by the regime of the National Congress. The regime wants the whole Sudanese people to give up and stamp on a treaty whose clauses are drafted according to the victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished,” he further said.
The Sudanese government on Thursday 25 May called on the hybrid peacekeeping mission which will submit a report to the Security Council next June to condemn the attacks by the SLM-MM and SLM- Transitional Council (SLM-TC) and to put pressure on the holdout rebel groups to accept a ceasefire and to negotiate a peace agreement.
The Foreign Ministry Under-Secretary Abdel-Ghani al-Nai’m further said the international community should condemn all those who support and provide a safe haven for the armed groups.
Sudan said the assailants came from Libya and South Sudan. Also, Khartoum accused Juba and Cairo of supporting and providing weapons to the two armed groups. the two neighbouring countries denied the accusations.
Minnawi added that his exerted for years its best efforts for a lasting, inclusive and just peace, stressing that “In times of war, peace and democratic transformation can only be achieved by stopping the war and addressing the root causes of the crisis. The first of steps to stop the war is to declare a cessation of hostilities to contain the humanitarian disaster caused by the regime’s aggression on unarmed civilians.”
He further pledged that the SLM-MM would resist and fight the regime to achieve a just peace in Sudan.
The SLM-MM is part of a peace process brokered by the African Union. However, the negotiations are stalled over the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) as the holdout armed groups demand to open it but the government rejected the demand saying the framework agreement is part of the constitution.
In an informal consultations meeting held in Berlin on 18-19 May, the government, SLM-MM and Justice and Equality Movement failed on how to refer to the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD).
However, a source close to the meeting said that “both sides said interested in resuming negotiations and demonstrated a lot of openness on what can be negotiated”.
The SLM-TC is not part of the peace process.
