Darfur rebel group denies peace agreement success

The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) under the leadership of Minni Minawi (SLM-MM) has contradicted statements made by Qatari and Unamid officials about a successful implementation of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD).

According to the chief negotiator of the movement, Ali Trayo, press statements made by representatives of the Qatari Foreign Affairs Ministry and the joint UN-AU Mission in Darfur (Unamid) last week about the peace process in Darfur “are just echoes of the positions of the government”.

“The Doha Document was born dead and the violent crisis in the region is still ongoing,” he told Radio Dabanga on Friday. “The statements about peace in Darfur are “a big lie, fabricated by the Sudanese government to mislead international public opinion.”

On Wednesday, the 13th meeting of the Implementation Follow up Commission of the DDPD took place in the Qatari capital of Doha. High-ranking government officials from Qatar and Sudan, and representatives of the UN-AU Mission in Darfur (Unamid) attended the meeting.

The officials repeated the Sudanese government’s stance that the Darfur peace document signed by Khartoum and an alliance of breakaway rebel groups in Doha in July 2011 cannot be reopened for new negotiations. They said it is impossible to start the peace talks from zero again, while the DDPD has been implemented by 85 per cent.

The meeting concluded that “there is need to reinvigorate the implementation of the residual issues of the DDPD”, a press statement by Unamid read. “The meeting recognised and appreciated the efforts of the Government of Sudan in the collection of arms, an endeavour that has contributed to a reasonable extent in creating an environment of the current relative stability.”

Peace attempts

Peace negotiations between the Sudanese government and the holdout rebel SLM-MM and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) collapsed in August 2016. Khartoum insisted on the DDPD as the basis for the talks, while the rebel movements categorically reject the contents of the agreement.

There have been several attempts to revive the talks, including sessions in Paris and discussions in Germany in 2017, and more recently, in Berlin at the end of June this year.

‘Slow implementation’

In October last year, the Sudan Liberation Movement breakaway faction of Nureldin Zorgi unilaterally froze the DDPD which it signed in February 2016.

In a press statement, the group said that most of the development projects have not been implemented so far. The faction further accused Khartoum of failing to implement the security arrangements stipulated in the peace agreement.