Darfur Authority chairman Sese, Abu Garda make peace

A meeting called for by a Qatari mediator between head of the Darfur Regional Authority Dr El Tijani Sese and LJM leader Bahar Idris Abu Garda resulted in their reconciliation on Wednesday. The investigative report about a fight during one of the Authority's conferences has been submitted to the President of Sudan.

DRA head Sese admitted that the fighting at a conference in Khartoum on 26 August, started by former members of Sese's National Liberation and Justice Movement (NLJM), was a “sad and negative incident”.

Ahmed bin Abdullah El Mahmud from Qatar, Chadian Foreign Minister Mousa El Faki, and chairman of the follow-up office of the Darfur Peace Document, Amin Hassan Omar, overlooked the meeting in Doha, Qatar. It was also attended by leader of the former rebel JEM-Sudan, Bakhit Abdallah Abdelkarim.

Sese afterwards told the press that the differences between the signatories to the Doha peace agreement have come to an end, “as everyone acknowledged we should get back to working toward the future.

“These divisions have had a negative impact on the partners of the Doha agreement. The reconciliation meeting looked into their causes, and everyone acknowledged the need to avoid the quarrels that occur.”

Relations between the signatory parties of the Doha peace agreement in 2011 have become chilly as members of the Liberation and Justice Movement, then headed by Sese, publicly criticise the “fraudulent practices” of their chairman. In January 2015, Sese was ousted as head of the LJM and the Secretary-General Bahar Idris Abu Garda was elected as his replacement. Sese formed the NJLM. Since then the DRA, with functionaries of both the NJLM and the JLM, has been divided too.

'President will decide' on quarrel

An update on the investigation into the fighting in El Salam Rotana Hotel led by Justice Minister Awad Hassan El Nur reveals that the inquiry committee has listened to 24 witnesses of the incident, without revealing the committee's recommendations.

The Minister told reporters on Wednesday that the committee also listened to the Governor of Central Darfur via telephone. All interviewed witnesses were speaking under oath, he explained.

The committee's final report has been submitted to the President's office, and according to El Nur he will decide on the matter. President Omar Al Bashir ordered the Minister to submit a report on the incident within one week on 30 August.

During the DRA’s inauguration ceremony of Phase Two of the Darfur development projects on 26 August, former members of the NLJM, which is headed by DRA chairman Sese, stormed the podium. They demanded to read a statement in protest against the NLJM’s way of working concerning the Darfur development projects. When this was refused, they began to riot and attacked a DRA Minister. The police intervened and contained the situation.