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Africa Horn
Dissident Darfur rebels to sign onto AU peace deal
2006-06-08
ADDIS ABABA - Dissident factions of two Darfur rebel groups that have rejected a peace deal for the troubled western Sudanese region are to sign onto the pact this week, African Union officials said on Wednesday.

Splinter wings of the Peoples Front for Sudan Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Sudanese Peoples Front Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) are to sign a specially prepared annex to the May 5 AU-mediated peace accord here on Thursday, the officials said. “The dissident JEM and SLM rebels are going to sign a declaration on Thursday saying that they support the Darfur Peace Agreement,” said Assane Ba, a spokesman for the Addis Ababa-based pan-African body.
Who?
“The declaration will then be annexed to the original accord and will bring these rebels into line with the other signatories,” he said.

Representatives of the two groups have been in the Ethiopian capital since last week when a May 31 deadline for holdouts to the agreement to sign or face possible sanctions passed with no new signers. They said Friday they were ready to accept the deal but were waiting until the African Union came up with a mechanism for them to join the peace deal, which aims to end a three-year conflict that has claimed up to 300,000 lives and displaced some 2.4 million others.
Also because they were being ignored and were getting their butts kicked.
The AU Peace and Security Council is due to meet on Thursday to approve the annex to the agreement, which is hoped will put further pressure on the remaining holdouts to sign, diplomats said. “For the African Union, this serves to marginalize those who have not yet signed and keep up pressure for them to join the process,” one African diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Only one Darfur rebel group, the main wing of the SLA, has thus far signed the peace deal with Khartoum and AU officials have become increasingly frustrated with the refusal of the JEM and an SLA faction led by Abdel Wahid Mohammed Al Nur to accept it.

AU commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare told reporters on Thursday that discussions with Al Nur’s faction were ongoing. “We maintain contacts,” he said. “We received a message from Abdel Wahid saying he is ready to come, but he has some conditions. Now we have to examine those conditions.”
Posted by:Steve White

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