First Vice President visit contested in Darfur

The National Congress Party (NCP) strongly denied accusations that the visit of the First Vice President Ali Osman Taha was unwelcomed, as stated by the Darfur grouping of the Sudan Revolutionary Front. Gabriel Adam Bilal, spokesperson of the Darfuri rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement – part of the Kauda Alliance and the Sudan Revolutionary Front – asserted that the visits to Nyala and El Fasher were made by the Vice President to mobilise local tribes. He said that the government would encourage these tribes to fight what they saw as forces of resistance. Dr. Rabi Abd Al-Atie, a leading member of the NCP told Radio Dabanga that “these accusations are baseless, and the situation in Darfur is stable with voluntary return for people who had fled the fighting seen to be unprecedented. “ He said that Ali Osman Taha was visiting the area to offer access to desperately needed services, programs such as microfinance initiatives and to discuss peace and reconciliation with the regional government. SLM also criticize visit to Darfur Savannah Rizk Allah Mohammed, the deputy commander of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) has accused Vice President Ali Mohammed Taha of using his recent visits to Nyala and El Fasher in North Darfur, to supply competing tribes with weapons and money. He claimed this was to trap them into a cycle of fighting and war. Speaking to Radio Dabanga he said that tribal leaders had told him that weapons were being distibuted by the government in Land Cruisers along the the border areas with South Sudan. He appealed to local governments and ministers to prevent this from becoming wide spread, and to recognise this tactic previously used by the National Congress Party, to destroy the South and Darfur by keeping them in a continuous state of war.