From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Sun Aug 17 2008 - 16:18:25 EDT
Former eastern Sudan rebels suspend leader
Sunday 17 August 2008 02:10.
August 16, 2008 (KHARTOUM) - Former rebels from eastern Sudan on
Saturday said they had suspended their own leader, accusing him of
splitting their political party along tribal lines.
The move raised the spectre of renewed instability in Sudan's
impoverished yet resource-rich east and came days after warnings that
the eastern fighters might return to war unless they received funding
and training promised by a peace deal.
That agreement ended a decade of low-level revolt in a region that is
home to Sudan's largest gold mine, its main port and major oil pipeline.
The eastern conflict has been overshadowed by Sudan's more high-profile
conflicts between its north and south and more recently in the western
region of Darfur.
Amna Dirar, a senior member of the Eastern Front that includes members
of the non-Arab Beja tribe and Arab Rashaidiya tribe, said a group of
party officials and military chiefs suspended the membership of chairman
Musa Mohamed Ahmed at a meeting on Friday.
Ahmed, who did not attend the meeting, was not immediately available for
comment.
Dirar said they made the decision after Ahmed organised a separate
conference for the Beja Congress, an organisation predominantly
representing the Beja tribe.
"He is considering himself the leader of two political parties (the
Eastern Front and the Beja Congress)," said Dirar.
"This is not acceptable ... The Eastern Front was formed to represent
all the people of the east, whatever their ethnic group. He has split
us."
She accused Ahmed of trying to concentrate power in the Beja Congress
and using the conference to form policies that would then be pushed
through the coalition Eastern Front party.
The Front joined a national coalition government after a peace deal in
2006 that saw Dirar appointed as a presidential adviser and Ahmed as a
presidential assistant.
Dirar said she had taken over as head of the Eastern Front until the
matter could be discussed at another party meeting.
"We have frozen his membership ... What happens next is up to him," she
said, referring to Ahmed.
"The Eastern Front will continue with members of the Beja Congress and
work as one party. Up to now we have not had a meeting as the Eastern
Front to agree on our activities. We don't have a strategy, no clear
objectives."
There have been growing signs of Sudan's political parties regrouping
ahead of national elections promised for 2009.
Dirar last week warned that easterners might be driven to fight again if
Khartoum failed to deliver a promised $600 million development package
and re-train eastern soldiers.
(Reuters)
<http://www.sudantribune.com/IMG/jpg/Mussa_Mohamed_Ahmed.jpg>
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