KHARTOUM: Darfur’s newly formed rebel Liberty and Justice Movement is set to seal a peace deal with Khartoum, even though it enjoys little backing on the ground in the war-torn Sudanese region.
Still in its infancy, the LJM is the only rebel faction so far in talks with Sudan’s government in the Qatari capital, from which two leading figures of the seven-year rebellion, Khalil Ibrahim and Abdelwahid Nur, have been absent.
Nur, the Paris-based head of Sudanese Liberation Army who previously dismissed the Doha talks as "ceremonial," has now decided to join the process, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Friday.
But the LJM, an assortment of small dissenting factions cobbled together under Libyan and US auspices and led by Tijane Sese, already inked a preliminary deal with Khartoum in March, and is likely to seal the agreement in Doha next week.
Unlike Ibrahim’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which agreed a ceasefire with Khartoum in February that soon disintegrated amid new fighting, the LJM has no military presence and commands little loyalty in the region.
Such is its lack of organization there that the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur arranged for Darfuris displaced in the war to meet LJM representatives in Qatar.
"It is sort of match-making, to connect the LJM and the IDPs (internally displaced people) and see if it can work between them," said one diplomat about the meeting.
Four hundred Darfur civil society representatives are expected to fly to the Gulf state next week for the coming meeting.
"The goal is to establish a social base for the LJM, and it would also prepare for better acceptance of what could be signed," Djibril Bassole, the joint UN and AU Darfur mediator, told AFP.
The LJM’s Sese, a former Darfur governor and Fur tribal leader in Ethiopian exile since the 1990s, said in a telephone interview that the region’s displaced needed to be consulted on any peace deal.
"Any peace agreement must take account of the displaced and refugees.
A complete peace must allow their return to their villages," he said, adding they would need compensation.
"It is necessary to discuss the stakes with the displaced and refugees," he said.
Analysts however say that achieving a comprehensive peace in the absence of JEM involvement and possibly Abdelwahid’s Sudan Liberation Army is impossible.
"A final peace without the participation of these two will be unfinished," said Bassole, adding Khartoum would likely concentrate on fighting the rebel holdouts rather than implementing the deal with the LJM.
May, which saw full-scale clashes between JEM and the Sudanese military, was the bloodiest month in Darfur since the beginning of 2008, showing the war is not over.
The United Nations estimates 300,000 people have died since rebels revolted against the Arab-dominated central government in 2003, which prompted a harsh crackdown by Sudanese President Omar Al-Beshir.
Beshir, who won another term in an April election, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes during the conflict.
