‘Darfur-Darfur Dialogue spans cart before horse’: armed movements

The Darfur rebel movements strongly reject the Darfur-Darfur Dialogue scheduled to start on 26 May as announced by the heads of the UN-AU Mission in Darfur (Unamid) and the Darfur Regional Authority. The leaders of the main Darfur rebel movements united in the Sudan Revolutionary Front, the justice and Equality Movement (JEM), and the two factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Abdel Wahid El Nur (SLM-AW), and by Minni Arko Minawi (SLM-MM), strongly refuse the idea of a Darfur-Darfur Dialogue in its current setting.They described the Dialogue as “soanning the cart before the horse”, and “empty talk that is doing no justice to the people of Darfur”. “A Darfur-Darfur dialogue cannot take place before the core issues that led to the war have been addressed,” Jibril Adam Bilal, the JEM spokesman stated to Radio Dabanga. He stressed that JEM considers such a dialogue as important and necessary, “but the current circumstances Darfur is in, are not convenient for a dialogue, in particular when it is controlled by the attackers”.“The Sudanese government is backing the Darfur-Darfur Dialogue for personal and political gains, and to ingratiate the international media,” Bilal said. “How can it be possible to hold such a dialogue when thousands of Darfuris, even in the larger towns, are still being attacked, killed, robbed, raped, and forcibly displaced from their homes?” Security firstSLM-MM spokesman Abdallah Mursal pointed to the fact that the SLM-MM was the first party to propose a Darfur-Darfur conference during the peace negotiations in Abuja in 2006. “However, such a dialogue cannot be held in the current settings. Security needs to be realised first. The Janjaweed militias have to be disarmed, and the displaced and refugees should have returned safely to their homelands. After these required steps have been accomplished, a Darfur-Darfur dialogue can take place, in which representatives of all the Darfuri communities are to take part.” The SLM-MM spokesman called through Radio Dabanga to all the people in Darfur to reject “such conferences aiming at the annihilation of the Darfur people’s just cause”. File photo Related:Darfur refugees in Chad reject dialogue (8 May 2014) Darfur displaced reject ‘NCP-NCP’ dialogue (7 May 2014) ‘Senior Sudan government representatives to take part in Darfur-Darfur dialogue’: Unamid (6 May 2014) Unamid head inaugurates courthouse, briefs community leaders in North Darfur (5 May 2014)