Darfur rebels to present vision on peace to Qatar mediators

Leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement faction led by Minni Minawi (SLM-MM) have agreed to provide Qatari mediators with their view about a common ground on which Darfur peace talks could be based.

Dr Jibril Ibrahim, head of the JEM, told Radio Dabanga that he and Minawi, met with representatives of the Qatari government headed by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmed Al Mahmoud, in Paris on Monday.

The talks focused on the developments in Sudan after the signing of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) in 2011, the situation on the ground, and whether the accord has achieved a just and comprehensive peace.

“In the meeting, we pointed to the rampant insecurity, the daily assaults, killings, and rapes, as well as the renewed attacks against villages in Darfur, and the ensuing displacement of hundreds of thousands of people after 2011,” he said. “All this constitutes irrefutable evidence that the Doha Document has not been successful in achieving a comprehensive peace on the ground.”

Ibrahim described the meeting as “frank and at times sharp. We agreed to present to the Qatari mediation team, as soon as possible, our vision about the possibility of a common ground for peace talks on Darfur”.

The DDPD was first signed in July 2011 by the Sudanese government and the Liberation and Justice Party (NJM) that was formed in 2010 by 19 breakaway factions of the main Darfur rebel movements. Two years later, a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement led by the late Mohamed Bashar (JEM-Sudan) joined the DDPD. Splinter groups from the JEM and the Sudan Liberation Movement signed the peace document in the following years.

The main rebel movements, the JEM, the mainstream Sudan Liberation Movement headed by Abdelwahid El Nur (SLM-AW), and the SLM-MM, refused the DDPD from the start. They established the Sudan Revolutionary Front rebel alliance in November 2011, together with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) that fights the government in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile, with the view to reach a comprehensive solution to the political and economic crises in the entire country.

The SLM-AW declines to join any mediation meeting on peace in Darfur unless the situation on the ground is secured and stable again.