ICC Issues Arrest Warrant Sudan President Omar Al Bashir

Today the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Bashir on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes, but not genocide:

Today, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for the arrest of Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, President of Sudan, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is suspected of being criminally responsible, as an indirect (co-)perpetrator, for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property. This is the first warrant of arrest ever issued for a sitting Head of State by the ICC.

Omar Al Bashir’s official capacity as a sitting Head of State does not exclude his criminal responsibility, nor does it grant him immunity against prosecution before the ICC, according to Pre-Trial Chamber I.

According to the Judges, the above-mentioned crimes were allegedly committed during a five year counter-insurgency campaign by the Government of Sudan against the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and other armed groups opposing the Government of Sudan in Darfur. It is alleged that this campaign started soon after the April 2003 attack on El Fasher airport as a result of a common plan agreed upon at the highest level of the Government of Sudan by Omar Al Bashir and other high-ranking Sudanese political and military leaders. It lasted at least until 14 July 2008, the date of the filing of the Prosecution’s Application for the warrant of arrest for Omar Al Bashir.

A core component of that campaign was the unlawful attack on that part of the civilian population of Darfur – belonging largely to the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups – perceived to be close to the organised armed groups opposing the Government of Sudan in Darfur. The said civilian population was to be unlawfully attacked by Government of Sudan forces, including the Sudanese Armed Forces and their allied Janjaweed Militia, the Sudanese Police Force, the National Intelligence and Security Service and the Humanitarian Aid Commission.

The Chamber found that Omar al Bashir, as the de jure and de facto President of Sudan and Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, is suspected of having coordinated the design and implementation of the counter-insurgency campaign. In the alternative, it also found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that he was in control of all branches of the “apparatus” of the State of Sudan and used such control to secure the implementation of the counter-insurgency campaign.

The counts

The warrant of arrest for Omar Al Bashir lists 7 counts on the basis of his individual criminal responsibility (article 25(3)(a)) including:

* five counts of crimes against humanity: murder – article 7(1)(a); extermination – article 7(1)(b); forcible transfer – article 7(1)(d);
torture – article 7(1)(f); and rape – article 7(1)(g);

* two counts of war crimes: intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities – article 8(2)(e)(i); and pillaging – article 8(2)(e)(v).

Findings concerning genocide

The majority of the Chamber, Judge Anita Ušacka dissenting, found that the material provided by the Prosecution in support of its application for a warrant of arrest failed to provide reasonable grounds to believe that the Government of Sudan acted with specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups. Consequently, the crime of genocide is not included in the warrant issued for the arrest of Omar Al Bashir. Nevertheless, the Judges stressed that if additional evidence is gathered by the Prosecution, the decision would not prevent the Prosecution from requesting an amendment to the warrant of arrest in order to include the crime of genocide.

Cooperation of States

The Judges directed the Registrar to prepare and transmit, as soon as practicable, a request for cooperation for the arrest and surrender of Omar Al Bashir to Sudan, and to all States Parties to the Rome Statute and all United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members that are not party to the Statute, as well as to any other State as may be necessary.

The Judges found that, according to UNSC resolution 1593 and articles 25 and 103 of the UN Charter, the obligation of the Government of Sudan to fully cooperate with the Court prevails over any other international obligation that the Government of Sudan may have undertaken pursuant to any other international agreement.

Pre-Trial Chamber I also found that the Government of Sudan has systematically refused to cooperate with the Court since the issuance of warrants for the arrest of the Sudanese Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Ahmad Harun, and a regional Janjaweed militia leader, Ali Kushayb, on 2 May 2007. As a result, the Judges emphasised that, according to article 87(7) of the Statute, if the Government of Sudan continues to fail to comply with its cooperation obligations to the Court, the competent Chamber “may make a finding to that effect” and decide to “refer the matter […] to the Security Council.”

Furthermore, the Judges noted that the dispositive part of UNSC resolution 1593 expressly urges all States, whether party or not to the Rome Statute, as well as international and regional organisations to “cooperate fully” with the Court.

You can read the actual warrant here [PDF].

The Truth Will Not Set You Free

I am returning simply to post this excerpt from Richard Just's truly excellent article in The New Republic: "The Truth Will Not Set You Free" and urge you to read the entire thing:

Genocide really is different from other foreign policy crises, in that it will not wait. Either you stop genocide immediately or you fail to stop it. And when it came to the question of troops, the Darfur activists were split. Many were uncomfortable with the use of force. Cheadle and Prendergast are candid about this: "Many of us peace and human rights advocates are rightly reluctant about the use of force. We need to get over it. There is such a thing as evil in this world, and sometimes the only way to confront evil is through the judicious use of military force." Amen, as long as "judicious" also means effective.

Eventually the movement coalesced around the idea that U.N. troops were the answer. In the wake of the Iraq debacle, the idea of sending U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur represented for many activists a sort of safe compromise--troops would be put on the ground, but American power would not be wielded. It was military action that they could endorse without opening a dissonance in their worldview. Even Prendergast, one of the most hawkish Darfur activists (and one of the smartest), endorses the U.N. option in his book as the solution that makes the most sense. To be fair, he has also suggested elsewhere that the United States should keep other military options on the table; but this latter position certainly places him outside the mainstream of the Darfur activist community.

At least one shortcoming of the Save Darfur movement cannot really be blamed on the movement's members. While its existence has undoubtedly helped to focus the attention of politicians on Darfur, it may also, in a bizarre way, have provided an excuse for these same politicians to avoid the fundamental responsibility that leadership entails. There is no better example than the introduction to Cheadle and Prendergast's book, which was written by Senators Barack Obama and Sam Brownback. "So what does it take to stop genocide?" they write. "What does it take to make the world listen and respond? It takes a number of important tools, including diplomacy, financial resources, and effective security forces. And in a world where these resources are finite, it often takes pressure--pressure from ordinary individuals standing together for an extraordinary cause--to mobilize these resources. In short, it takes you." Get it? Obama and Brownback are urging us to urge them to stop the genocide. And Obama repeats this weird formula in the movie version of The Devil Came on Horseback, remarking that "we need greater pressure from the American public to tell their senators this is something we are paying attention to, and we want you to prioritize it."

The circular nature of this logic is maddening, especially coming from Obama, who may soon be the most powerful man in the world. Such logic misunderstands the way a representative democracy works. The line that connects people to politicians is not a one-way street. In a democracy, leaders must be responsive to people's views--but people's views are also shaped by their leaders. The failure of leaders to act cannot be explained by the failure of the public to demand, or to demand more loudly, that they act, unless of course the leaders wish to be regarded merely as followers. Politicians have an obligation to do more than urge us to urge them to formulate solutions to problems, particularly when the problem is an emergency that requires swift action. Genocide will not be stopped by an ideas festival, in or out of government.

Break

Having posted here on an almost daily basis for nearly three years, I have to admit that the entire crisis is wearing me down and I am finding it harder and harder to keep reading and posting articles about the daily ins-and-outs of what is happening.

On top of that, I am getting increasingly busy with work and other things - so I am going to put this blog on hiatus for the time being.

But for those of you still seeking daily updates on what is happening in the region, please visit Passion of the Present, which has consistently posted a vast array of coverage, and the ENOUGH Project.

Best,
KM

Darfur: Peacekeepers Without a Peace to Keep

From the New York Times

IF anyone needed proof that Darfur has degenerated into a peacekeeper’s nightmare, 30 truckloads of armed men forcefully delivered it two weekends ago.

They stormed a small African Union garrison in a dusty village, Haskanita, and massacred 10 African peacekeepers, looted their equipment and torched their base. The attack came as the African Union was preparing for a critical peace conference on Darfur and the United Nations was rushing to assemble a beefed-up force that will total 26,000 soldiers under joint U.N.-African Union command — the largest peacekeeping mission in the world.

Is the intervention too late? Or maybe, as some experts argue, too early?

The problem with Darfur is that it is not a Kosovo, an East Timor, or a Cyprus, all places where United Nations blue helmets have stepped between well-defined warring parties and stopped the bloodshed. Darfur is experiencing a different, messier kind of war.

Though often simplified, the situation in Darfur has become a chaotic free-for-all with many warring pieces, Arab versus Arab, rebel versus rebel, bandit versus bandit, all fighting one another in a desiccated, burned-out wasteland overrun with weapons and increasingly lethal for aid workers and peacekeepers.

If anything, Darfur resembles Somalia in the 1990s, when the failure of American-backed United Nations peacekeepers to subdue teenage gunmen in flip-flops ushered in 16 years of chaos that rages on today.

“Unless Unamid,” the abbreviation for the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, “develops a strategy, wises up very fast to the complexity of the conflict in 2007 and gets out of its fortresses, which is more unlikely than ever post-Haskanita, it will very soon become a major part of the problem,” said Julie Flint, a London-based journalist and co-author of “Darfur: A Short History of a Long War.” She cited the amount of water peacekeepers would consume — up to 40 times per person what a typical Darfurian uses, the burden on already broken roads and communications, and the huge expectations the force’s arrival will create.

“Darfurians are expecting to be saved by Unamid, to have roads opened, the janjaweed disarmed and banditry ended,” she said. This, she added, is “mission impossible,” however well the troops perform.

Impossible or not, some experts emphasized that if the force is to have any chance of success, it must be willing to fight robustly and take casualties.

Roméo Dallaire, the former United Nations commander in Rwanda who was ordered to essentially watch the 1994 genocide there explode before his eyes, said the troops must “go inside the camps, do night patrols and snap inspections, essentially go wherever they need to, without the Sudanese Army or police blocking them.” He said they also need to go after “every one of those splinter groups” and they’ll need the proper gear to do so.

Though the United Nations has gotten pledges for the foot soldiers it needs from countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Thailand, it is still waiting on developed countries to cough up 24 helicopters, as well as heavy trucks and other equipment.

“Unless the commander screams to the high heavens for the force multipliers his troops need, he will fail,” said Mr. Dallaire, now a senator in Canada.

John Prendergast, co-chairman of the Enough project, an initiative to raise awareness of crimes against humanity, said the new peacekeepers needed to “make a statement early on that this force is different from the last one,” referring to the current African force.

“Let’s say a village has been attacked and the attackers are retreating,” he said. “If there’s good intelligence about who did this, then it’s very important for the peacekeepers to engage them, whoever they are — rebels, militias, the government — so they and other groups know there is a cost to their actions.”

The peacekeepers, he said, can’t forget their core mission — protecting people. “For example, they need to go on firewood patrols and protect the women collecting wood from getting raped,” he said. “No, this isn’t going to end the conflict. But it could at least end one of the most horrific subplots of this saga.”

Jane Holl Lute, an assistant secretary general at the United Nations, said the fragmentation of Darfur’s armed groups could be “a sign of weakness,” and restoring law and order would offer the peacekeepers an opportunity to win over the local population. She cited Haiti and Liberia as precedents.

Congo, which is home to the largest current United Nations peacekeeping force — more than 17,000 troops — is also an example. There, peacekeepers have made a dent in attacks on civilians, though by no means have they stopped them all.

When to act in Darfur has been a question since the conflict began in 2003, primarily as a rebellion by some non-Arab tribes. That fueled a brutal counterinsurgency by government-backed Arab militias, the feared janjaweed, who burned villages, raped women and slaughtered civilians. At least 200,000 people are thought to have died.

Leslie Lefkow, an Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch, said, “There was definitely a lost opportunity for a robust intervention in 2004, when the situation was clearer in terms of the number and nature of the armed groups.”

On the other hand, there are dangers in jumping in too early.

“A peacekeeping force can end up prolonging the conflict by preventing either side from winning,” said Michael Clough, a former director of the Africa program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Unfortunately, conflicts seldom end until one side loses — or realizes that it is likely to lose unless it agrees to a negotiated settlement.”

The ideal situation for using peacekeepers, of course, is when a deal has already been struck and they can simply monitor it. In Bosnia that made all the difference. Before the Dayton accords, peacekeepers were powerless to stop massacres, like the 8,000 people killed in Srebrenica, in 1995, in front of Dutch soldiers. After Dayton, there was a peace to keep, and it held.

And so the timing of the expanded force for Darfur may be backward. Because of the enormous international pressure, the decision to send the peacekeepers came first, and now there is a scramble to force a political settlement before they arrive.

Sam Ibok, a negotiator for the Africa Union, said one complication is that Darfur’s rebel leaders have “prematurely ripened.” That is, Western activists lifted them from obscurity and saw them as heroes in a very complicated conflict, before they had much chance to learn organizational skills. As a result, he said, “it’s very difficult for them to make peace.”

Ditto for the Sudanese government, which does not have a stellar record of living up to its word. On Thursday, former rebels in south Sudan abruptly quit the national unity government to protest what they said was a policy by Sudan’s leaders of undercutting the peace deal they signed two years ago.

The reforms they are demanding — power sharing, wealth sharing and democratizing Sudan’s militarized regime — are the same ones that the rebels are fighting for in Darfur.

Darfur: From Bad to Worse

An op-ed by Alex de Waal in The Los Angeles Times

Helping bring peace to southern Sudan in 2005 was the Bush administration's finest foreign policy achievement. It is now unraveling, risking a new north-south civil war that would surpass Darfur as a political and humanitarian disaster.

The Darfur advocacy campaigns have familiarized the American public with the suffering and abuse visited on civilians in that region of western Sudan. The people of southern Sudan suffered no less during the years of civil war beginning in 1983. The successive governments in Khartoum had two weapons of choice: freelance militias licensed to raid, burn and plunder; and deliberate famine that starved southern Sudanese to the point where vast tracts of their fertile land are now depopulated. The stakes were undeniably high. Khartoum didn't want to lose control of the south, which has oil. But most of those who live in southern Sudan -- Christians and followers of traditional theistic faiths -- believe that their homeland should separate from northern Sudan and end generations of exploitation by Khartoum's Arab-Islamic elites. Over 20 years, up to 2 million southerners perished.

A concerted diplomatic effort by neighboring African countries, backed by the U.S., Britain and Norway, brought Africa's longest civil war to an end. The Bush administration's commitment to peace was pivotal. In his first months in office, President Bush reversed the previous Clinton policy of backing Sudan's armed opposition -- especially the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement led by John Garang -- in favor of a negotiated accord. U.S. pressure helped make that peace a reality. More important still was a shared vision of a democratically transformed Sudan with a government of national unity that had a place for all, including President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir and the Islamists.

The peace deal was signed in Kenya in January 2005. But, as diplomats noted at the time, the deal was just a beginning; implementing the agreement would be 10 times harder. It includes complex provisions for power sharing, dividing the national wealth, demarcating the internal north-south boundary, integrating government troops and former rebels into joint military units, holding democratic elections in 2009 and holding a referendum in the south on self-determination in 2011. But then Garang died in a helicopter crash, and Vice President Ali Osman Taha, the leading moderate voice in Khartoum, found himself politically marginalized. With Darfur engulfed in war, progress became harder still.

Recent weeks have brought an accelerating drumbeat of warnings that the peace accord is breaking down. Garang's successor as leader of southern Sudan has spoken of a return to war. Southern leaders complain repeatedly that their counterparts from the north, in the National Congress Party, renege on agreements and make key decisions behind their backs. On Thursday, Pagan Amum, secretary-general of the SPLM, announced that his party was pulling out of the unity government until key elements of the peace agreement were fully implemented. Meanwhile, both sides are expanding their armies, aiming -- for now -- to deter the other from initiating a war.

Few Sudanese doubt that a new war would be even more hideous than its predecessor. The south would try to secede; for President Bashir it would be a fight to the death. Millions of southern civilians now live in the north, including in and around the capital, Khartoum. The SPLM has supporters and troops in other parts of the north as well, including the highly combustible Kordofan region. That area, next to Darfur, already is suffering a spillover of that war, and just last week the United Nations warned that violent conflict could erupt there. Potentially compounding disaster, a secessionist war probably would draw in Egypt on Khartoum's side and other neighbors, such as Uganda, in support of the south, and ignite a conflagration throughout the Nile Valley.

The deepening political crisis also poisons the chances for any peaceful resolution of Darfur's conflict. Why should Darfur's rebels make a deal with a government that seems to be collapsing? If it does collapse, the war in Darfur will enter a new and more deadly phase.

The dream of democratic transformation in Sudan is ailing, but it is far from dead. So far, the north-south cease-fire is holding. But the 2005 peace accord urgently needs the full diplomatic strength of the Bush administration behind it -- especially if peace in Sudan is to be any part of the Bush legacy.

Darfur: Prosecutor Calls For Arrest of War Crimes Suspects

From The Canadian Press

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is urging Canadians and people around the world to tell their governments to help nab suspected Darfur war criminals.

"One important thing the world did to prevent (genocide) was establish this court," Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Saturday in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"Now, the challenge is to implement the law decisions."

Moreno-Ocampo, who spoke at a global conference Saturday on the prevention of genocide in Montreal, said land and cattle have been taken away from more than two million Sudanese, many of whom were forced into "squalid" camps.

More than 200,000 people have been killed during the conflict, which began in 2003.

Those behind these "massive atrocities" must be apprehended for the clash to end, he said.

In the spring, the international court issued warrants for Sudanese government minister Ahmed Harun and janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, both suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur.

However, Sudan's government has refused to arrest the suspects.

Harun, meanwhile, was appointed as the country's humanitarian affairs minister, which puts him in charge of the people he displaced, Moreno-Ocampo added.

"There is no solution to Darfur if Harun is not arrested," he said.

"I have a strong case against the minister, now the Sudan has to arrest him."

But he said Darfur presents a challenge for the global community because the United Nations cannot deploy peacekeepers in the area unless it has an agreement with Sudan.

Moreno-Ocampo called on Canadians and people around the world to speak up about Darfur.

"It is time to break the silence," he said.

Canada's position that security should focus more on the individual rather than the state has given it a leading role in bringing war criminals to justice, he added.

"I hope Canada still leads, it's very important," Moreno-Ocampo said.

Rebecca Hamilton, a Harvard University law student and co-founder of a cross-campus organization condemning the Sudanese genocide, said although it's only five years old, the International Criminal Court can deal with war crimes on a permanent basis.

However, without its own police force to execute arrest warrants, The Hague-based court needs co-operation.

"Like anything, it requires the support of citizens," said Hamilton, who worked in the Sudan in 2004.

Hamilton attended the McGill University conference to launch a declaration from student leaders of 54 universities in 23 countries condemning the Darfur conflict.

She said prevention is key.

"It's not enough to just, when the crisis hits the headlines, to suddenly go 'Oh, we've got to do something,' and scramble," she said.

"You're always going to be too late."

Darfur: Canada Betraying Reputation, Says Dallaire

From The Montreal Gazette

Canada should take a leading role in bringing the ongoing slaughter of millions of civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan to an end, Senator Roméo Dallaire said yesterday.

Mr. Dallaire, a retired Canadian Forces general who commanded the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda during the Tutsi genocide in 1994, said the government has shown no willingness to uphold the "responsibility to protect," the doctrine it came up with and convinced the United Nations to accept in 2005.

"Canada loves its reputation but is not willing to pay the price," he said in an interview at a conference on the prevention of genocide.

The doctrine -- the brainchild of former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy -- obliges the United Nations to shield people all over the world from genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of their own governments, even if it means military intervention.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, echoed Mr. Dallaire's sentiments, saying that Canada also took a leading role in establishing the ICC.

"What message does silence bring to the victims in Darfur? What message does the silence bring to the perpetrators?" he said. "People need our help and attention now."

About 2.5 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes since February 2003 as a result of a government-supported campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Sudan's western region bordering Chad.

They've been executed, raped, tortured and had their property pillaged, observers say.

The Sudanese government has rejected the full deployment of a proposed African Union-United Nations protection force to Darfur and it impedes efforts to protect civilians.

"I'm still in awe in the most pejorative way of how we're being fiddled with by an astute, foxy and genocidal regime in Sudan," Mr. Dallaire said.

"What you have is the Sudanese applying all kinds of problems that ultimately will render a force ineffective."

Darfur: Splintered Rebels Search for Common Ground

From Reuters

Representatives of seven Darfur rebel groups net in south Sudan on Monday to try to reach a common negotiating position ahead of peace talks with the government.

But huge doubts remain about whether Darfur's rapidly fracturing rebel groups will be able to agree on a joint set of grievances and negotiating points before they travel to Libya for the negotiations with Khartoum on Oct. 27.

Even as the meeting got under way, rebels leaders said some fighters were shifting allegiances.

Organisers of the meeting in Juba, capital of south Sudan, said rebels would have up to five days to find common ground.

Some delegates in Juba told Reuters they were optimistic.

"We will not leave Juba unless we are reunited," said Tadjadine Bechir Niam, from a breakaway faction of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement. "We are ready to give any concessions."

A spokesman for the meeting's organisers, the South Sudan Darfur Taskforce, said they were hopeful the founder of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, would attend.

El-Nur has so far refused to take part in any peace negotiations, demanding a string of concessions from Khartoum.

Mainly non-Arab rebels took up arms in 2003 in Darfur accusing the government of neglecting the remote western region. Khartoum mobilised mainly Arab militias to quell the revolt.

The sheer number of rebel groups vying for a place at the negotiating table has proved a headache for the United Nations and the African Union, the organisers of the Libyan talks.

The leader of the main branch of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, Khalil Ibrahim, last week threatened to pull out of the peace process unless only two factions -- his own and a unified Sudan Liberation Army -- were allowed to take part.

The situation was further complicated by reports that a number of fighting units had agreed to leave their leaders and join the "Unity" faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA-Unity).

Suleiman Jamous, a leading figure in SLA-Unity, told Reuters: "We are trying to get the Sudan Liberation Army back under one banner if possible. We are contacting field commanders across the region."

He said fighting units previously loyal to other SLA faction leaders including el-Nur and Ahmed Abdel Shafie had joined the new unified group.

Jamous also claimed a number of defections from the SLA faction run by Minni Arcua Minnawi -- the only rebel leader to sign up to a failed peace agreement with Sudan in 2006.

Another leading member of SLA-Unity cast doubt on whether Sudan's government had the authority to go to Libya, following the withdrawal of its main coalition partner.

The southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement pulled its ministers from the government on Thursday in a dispute over the 2005 peace agreement on the separate north-south civil war.

From AFP

Darfur rebel factions that have not signed a peace deal with Khartoum were meeting in the southern city of Juba on Monday to try to unify their positions ahead of peace talks in Libya later this month.

Salva Kiir, first vice-president and head of the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement that formed a government with Khartoum, opened the meeting with a call for "unity of the factions and of the people of Darfur."

The talks come with the southern semi-autonomous government gripped by its own crisis after it withdrew from the national unity government on Thursday, accusing Khartoum of failing to respect a 2005 peace deal for the south.

A Darfur peace deal was signed in May 2006 between Khartoum and one of three negotiating rebel factions to end four years of conflict which has killed at least 200,000 people according to the United Nations.

Since then, the non-signatory rebel groups have splintered into dozens of factions. UN envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson said last week he was aware of 28 rebel groups.

Kiir urged participants to draw up "common demands and form a single delegation" ahead of the Libya peace talks on October 27, according to Jar al-Nabi Abdel Kader Yunes, who heads a delegation of commanders who split from a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement headed by Abdel Wahed Nur.

Other rebel groups present are the Sudan Liberation Movement-Unity headed by Ahmed Teshafi and a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement, known as JEM-Unified Command, according to Yunes.

Two rebel chiefs from south Darfur known only as Mohammed Ali Kilai and "Commander Seddik" were also present, Yunes said, but could not immediately identify their factions.

Notably absent from the meetings was Nur's SLM faction, which has said it will not attend the Libya talks unless a UN peacekeeping force is deployed first in Darfur.

Also missing were the main JEM faction led by Khalil Ibrahim and the SLM faction headed by Khamis Abdallah, said Yunes.

The rebels meeting in Juba said that the Khartoum military tried to prevent them from reaching the talks, forcing the African Union plane they were flying in on Thursday to make an emergency landing in Darfur or be shot down.

"An air defence unit said it would shoot down the plane if it didn't land immediately," SLM-Unity spokesman Mahjoub Hussein said at the time. The aircraft was allowed to resume its journey several hours later.

Monday's talks come amid an upsurge in violence in Darfur, where the one rebel group to have signed the peace deal with Khartoum, the Sudan Liberation Movement of Minni Minawi, has threatened to take up arms again.

Minawi's faction said that Sudanese forces and their allied Janjaweed militia killed 50 people in an attack earlier this month on a town it controls in Darfur, threatening the fragile peace deal.

The UN subsequently reported clashes between Khartoum forces and Minawi ex-rebels, but the circumstances of the violence were not clear.

Another attack carried out by unidentified forces on an African Union base near Haskanita in Darfur killed 10 peacekeepers from the under-manned force, ratcheting up the pressure ahead of the Libya talks.

Conflict and famine in Darfur have killed at least 200,000 people and displaced two million since Khartoum enlisted the Janjaweed to put down an ethnic minority revolt in 2003. Aid groups have blamed the militia in particular for widespread rape, murder and destruction of villages.

Khartoum says only 9,000 people have died in the conflict.

Chad: Ethnic Clashes Kill 20

From Reuters

Twenty people were killed in ethnic clashes in east Chad after the desertion of former rebels loyal to the defence minister stoked tensions in the region bordering Sudan's Darfur, government sources said on Monday.

The violence between the Tama and Zaghawa communities broke out after an armed group of Tama fighters who had served under Defence Minister Mahamat Nour abandoned the eastern town of Guereda last week and moved close to the Sudanese border. They accused Chad's armed forces of trying to disarm them.

Details of the inter-communal fighting were scarce but it appeared armed Zaghawa clansmen had taken advantage of the absence of Nour's men in Guereda to settle scores with Tamas. Clan rivalries run deep in eastern Chad as in Darfur, many local residents go about armed and clashes are frequent.

News of the latest violence emerged as European Union foreign ministers were meeting in Luxembourg to announce final details of the planned deployment of an EU peacekeeping force in eastern Chad to protect civilians, refugees and aid workers.

Chad's President Idriss Deby flew on Sunday to Biltine, the main town of the eastern Wadi Fira border region, and instructed the local governor to travel to Guereda to calm the situation, the government sources, who asked not to be named, said.

"There are 20 dead and lots of material damage," one said.

The desertion of the group of Nour's men, former members of the rebel United Front for Democratic Change (FUC) which he once led, raised fears of fresh splits inside Chad's fractious armed forces at a time when Deby's government is trying to push through a peace deal with other eastern rebels still under arms.

It also raised questions about the role of Nour, a Tama and former anti-Deby rebel chief who signed a peace deal with the Zaghawa president in December and was later named defence minister.

Nour has appealed for calm among his Tama fighters and flew back to Chad's western capital N'Djamena on Sunday after receiving treatment abroad for an illness.

He was expected to meet Deby in Biltine later on Monday.

The clashes in east Chad follow a surge in violence over the border in Sudan's Darfur, where rebels, militias and African Union peacekeepers have tangled in clashes ahead of planned Darfur peace talks in Tripoli this month.

The EU force for Chad is deploying to complement an even bigger United Nations/African Union force planned for Darfur, where a local rebellion and ethnic fighting since 2003 have killed some 200,000 people, experts say. Sudan's government rejects this figure, saying the death toll is much lower.

Deby, who has ruled Chad since he took power through an eastern revolt in 1990, has seen his government shaken by splits and military desertions over the past two years.

His government signed a peace deal in Libya last week with four rebel groups. The accord promises the rebels government posts in return for a ceasefire, but some rebel leaders have said differences remain over disarmament.

Uganda: LRA Displeased With ICC Chief Prosecutor

From VOA

Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have described as baseless and unfounded accusations that they are regrouping and still committing various forms of atrocities in Northern Uganda. This comes after the International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo accused the rebels of committing more atrocities even as the LRA was engaged in peace negotiations with the government to end over-20 years of insurgency. Ocampo also reportedly said that the international arrest warrants against the LRA leadership should not be suspended since the rebels have not stopped committing atrocities against innocent civilians.

David Matsanga is the rebel's technical advisor on ICC matters. From the Kenyan capital, Nairobi he tells reporter Peter Clottey that the ICC chief prosecutor's statement could potentially undermine the on going peace negotiations in Juba.

"We do respect the ICC, but we don't respect Moreno Ocampo. We don't want these things to be distinguished. Moreno Ocampo has become personal and the LRA is determined to also become personal because Moreno Ocampo has left his job and he has now become a witch hunter, a prosecutor, and investigator and doing all the things that are actually against the LRA," Matsanga noted.

He said the ICC chief prosecutor has not only failed to discharge his duties, but has also been biased against the rebels.

"He is not doing his job as the ICC statue has stated. He is doing a different job because he has been compromised by the government of the Republic of Uganda because he knows that it is him who flawed these investigations by investigating only one side of the conflict. So the LRA is determined to become personal from now. We respect the ICC, but we don't respect Moreno Ocampo as a prosecutor," he said.

Matsanga challenged the investigation that led to ICC indictment of crimes against humanity against the LRA leadership.

"You know very well that the ICC has no army, has no police to apprehend anybody. They are a talking shop one, because they have these things of Northern Uganda wrongly. You cannot investigate one side, and you call investigation. What do you call investigation? If two people have been fighting, do you investigate one side only? We have been keeping quiet… we are discussing peace, why should Ocampo a one single individual, a man from Europe to come and refuse what Ugandans are saying? They want peace and Ocampo wants to dole out punishment. Who is Ocampo? Ocampo has belittled himself to a degree of a person who should not be a prosecutor at all," Matsanga pointed out.

He said the chief prosecutor's recent statement could seriously destabilize the peace negotiations between the rebels and the Ugandan government.

"Ocampo is undermining Dr. Riek Marchar's effort to bring peace in the region. Why does he issue statements of this nature at this time when he knows that we have signed Agenda Number Two? Number three; we are going to sign the ceasefire (agreement) and DDR (disarmament, demobilization, and resettlement) why does he talk about arrest allegations, which recruitment? Can he name how many people were recruited, when and where were they recruited? Which camp are they in, what type of malice is this? This is total malice that I have ever seen… Ocampo's statements are naïve, prudish, sardonic, and they deserve the highest contempt of the whole international community. And even any lawyer who has studied law should actually condemn Ocampo," he said.

Darfur: Peacekeeping Hampered by Logistical, Political Hurdles

From AFP

Only weeks before the joint UN-African Union (AU) peace force is to begin deploying in Darfur, the operation appears hobbled by logistical and political problems compounded by an upsurge of fighting on the ground.

On the political front, UN diplomats also point to questions marks about a planned new round of Darfur peace talks scheduled for October 27 in Libya due to the surging violence and the refusal of some Darfur rebels to take part.

In his latest report on Darfur, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that the timeline for deploying the joint force known as UNAMID was being delayed due to problems in obtaining "land for construction of offices and accommodation in Darfur and...feedback regarding the list of troop-contributing countries submitted to the government of Sudan."

"It is of critical importance that the government (of Sudan) extend the support and cooperation necessary to resolve the issues pertaining to land, landing rights for UN aircraft and the finalization of the list of troop-contributing countries for UNAMID," Ban noted.

The United Nations and the African Union have so far agreed to accept troops for UNAMID from at least 16 countries, mostly from Africa but also from Thailand, Bangladesh, Jordan, Nepal, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries.

Khartoum has been insisting on UNAMID having a "predominantly African character" but has accepted that the UN can turn to non-African countries to fill gaps, notably in specialized areas such as logistics, transport and communications.

One key unresolved issue is a shortage of 24 transport and tactical helicopters that are meant to give the force sufficient mobility and firepower at a time when government troops and rebel fighters are locked in a fresh cycle of strikes and counter-strikes.

Ten of these helicopters which Jordan had offered to supply were rejected by UN peacekeeping planners as unsuitable for the operation.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of UN peacekeeping operations, Monday urged European countries and others with the needed capacities to provide the helicopters and pilots, saying they were "critical for the success of the mission."

But a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Europeans' reluctance to provide the helicopters stemmed from doubts about UNAMID command and control arrangements.

"There are still question marks over how effective and how robust this force is going to be," he said, adding that efforts were being made to try "to build confidence in the robustness of the force," notably by seconding a senior British military officer to its Nigerian commander, General Martin Luther Agwai.

The bulk of UNAMID, which is to comprise more than 19,000 military personnel, over 6,000 police and over 5,500 civilians, is not expected to be on the ground in Darfur, a region the size of France, until well into next year.

Meanwhile Ban also raised the alarm about the surging violence in Darfur, deploring "the brazen and brutal attacks" allegedly by rebel fighters on a base of AU peacekeepers that killed 10 of them in the southern town of Haskanita late last month.

Wednesday, the UN said fighting had erupted between Sudanese troops and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction of Minni Minawi, the only Darfur rebel group to have signed a 2006 peace accord, after the rebels accused Khartoum of attacking a town they control.

The escalating fighting comes as the UN and the AU scrambled to lay the groundwork for new Darfur peace talks set for October 27 in the Libyan capital Tripoli to try to end four years of fighting during which over 200,000 people are believed to have died.

Hardline Darfur rebel chief Abdel Wahid Mohammed Nur's faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement has said he will not attend the new peace talks with Khartoum until UNAMID is fully deployed in Darfur.

But a Western diplomat here said that although "a significant faction leader" of Darfur's Fur ethnic group, Paris-based Nur could be subjected to UN sanctions if he is found to be "an obstacle to peace."

"He needs to be persuaded that this is serious negotiation and the train will leave the station and if he is not on it then he won't form a part of the outcome," he added.

The diplomat said the Tripoli meeting should be seen as the "start of a process"' and should produce agreement on a ceasefire.

Sudan: Crisis on Two Fronts as Southern Party Quits Govt

From AFP

Sudan faced a crisis on two fronts Thursday after the main party in the south withdrew from government because of Khartoum's failure to share power as hopes also faded for peace in Darfur.

Former southern rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement suspended their participation in the national government as fighting escalated in the western region of Darfur where rebels have taken up arms complaining of abuse and marginalisation by Khartoum.

Darfur peace talks due in Libya later this month have been put at risk by reports that Khartoum forces and their allied Janjaweed militias have intensified attacks on the rebels, including the only faction to have signed a peace deal.

In Khartoum, a senior SPLM official said the decision to withdraw from government was taken at a meeting in the southern capital of Juba presided over by party leader Salva Kiir.

"Our participation in the government is frozen until we can find a solution to our differences" with the north, he added.

The SPLM and its armed wing signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with Khartoum in 2005, ending 21 years of war between the Muslim north and Christian and animist south that killed at least two million people and displaced millions more.

At least 200,000 people have been killed in four years of fighting in Darfur.

While southern former rebel leader Salva Kiir currently holds the post of first vice president in the national government, further implementation of the agreement has been dogged by problems and mutual accusations of stalling.

The SPLM currently has 18 ministers and deputy ministers in the central government, as well as holding its own parliament sessions in Juba, the capital of the semi-autonomous south.

The SPLM official said key problems revolved around the withdrawal of northern troops from the south, the fate of the disputed oil-rich region of Abiye and "the evolution of democracy in Sudan."

He said that the SPLM would return to the government once the differences were resolved.

In Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army faction of Minni Minawi, the only rebel group to have signed a 2006 peace deal, threatened to take up arms again after it said more than 50 people were killed in a government-backed attack.

"From now on, our movement will not stand by and do nothing in the face of such attacks," Arku Suleiman Dhahia, commander in chief of the SLA said on Tuesday.

"If this happens again, we go back to square one which means war and it will be worse than the one before (the peace deal was signed) 2006," he told journalists in Khartoum.

The UN reported clashes between government of Sudan forces and Minawi troops but the circumstances of the fighting remain unclear.

As a result of the attack, Minawi, now a special advisor to President Omar al-Beshir, cut short a visit to Darfur in which he had been trying to persuade other rebel factions to join this month's peace conference in Libya.

US envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios earlier this month voiced "deep concern" at the "poisonous" atmosphere between the north and south peace partners since the CPA was signed.

"Tensions are rising. This is dangerous ... The current political atmosphere between (north and south) is poisonous," Natsios said on October 6.

He said the risk of clashes between both sides was high, warning of the danger of militarisation on the border.

In August, south Sudan's information minister Samson Kwaje warned that the world's focus on ending the conflict in Darfur could hamper the implementation of the north-south accord

Darfur: Arms Continue to Flow, Security Council Expert Panel Finds

From the UN News Center

The Sudanese Government and rebel groups in Darfur continue to violate the Security Council arms embargo, sending heavy weapons, small arms, ammunition and other military equipment into the war-torn region over the past year, a panel of experts set up to monitor the ban says in a new report.

The panel finds that the Government has shipped arms and equipment – including military airplanes and helicopters – by air into the airports of Darfur’s three provincial capitals, El Fasher, Nyala and El Geneina.

This occurred even though the Government did not submit any requests for approval or exemption to the Security Council committee set up in 2005 as part of the arms embargo, the report states, covering the period from the end of September last year to the end of August this year.

Government warplanes also made numerous offensive overflights in Darfur, and engaged in aerial bombardments, although the panel notes that the frequency of aerial attacks has declined since April.

Several non-State armed groups have also received weapons, including assault rifles, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns, that were bought in an unnamed country and then transported through Eritrea and later Chad to reach the rebels in Darfur, which lies on Sudan’s western flank.

The panel says it is still awaiting responses from several Member States concerning that shipment, as well as other shipments to non-State armed groups.

It reiterates its earlier recommendation to expand the arms embargo to cover Sudan’s entire territory and issues a fresh recommendation calling for a ban on the sale and supply of arms and related materiel to non-State armed groups located in or operating from neighbouring Chad.

Turning to the targeted financial and travel-related sanctions, the panel states that the Sudanese and Chadian Governments have failed to fully implement the resolutions relating to the ban, such as by monitoring the financial accounts of individuals named by the Council.

The panel also finds that both the Sudanese Government and Darfur’s major rebel groups have impeded the peace process, whether by conducting ongoing hostilities, placing lengthy pre-conditions on participating in peace talks or by failing to disarm other groups under their control.

Several rebel groups, including the National Redemption Front (NRF) and the Minni Minawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) have also actively targeted the African Union peacekeeping mission currently operating in Darfur.

For its part, the Government had used white aircraft in many of its offensive overflights in Darfur, including in at least one instance a plane with “UN” markings.

All sides, including local Arab tribal militia, are not enforcing any accountability for breaches of the laws and rules of war, while the panel states that rape is being widely used as an instrument of warfare.

Darfur: Moral Equivalence

A post from Eric Reeves on Comment is Free

Lakhdar Brahimi, a former UN envoy to Iraq and one of several international eminences know as "the Elders," briefly toured Sudan last week and declared that the Darfur rebels were being "pampered" by the "international community." This sentiment represents a growing exasperation on the part of western and African diplomats with the Darfuri rebels for being unable to coordinate a common position from which to negotiate a peace accord. And for this failure, rebel leaders and Darfuri political leaders in the disapora bear a great deal of blame, even as Khartoum has been exceedingly resourceful in its divide-and-rule policies.

But the notion that the rebels are being pampered by the international community is simply nonsense. Diplomatic criticism of the rebel leaders has grown steadily in past weeks and months. Moreover, one has only to look at the anemic Western contributions to the UN/AU hybrid peace support operation to Darfur authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1769 to see how little pampering has occurred. All evidence suggests that the people of Darfur - civilians and rebels alike - will be left without meaningful improvement in human security for many months to come.

Indeed, the international community's willingness to commit to a policy of moral equivalence, in which Khartoum is no more responsible for violence and civilian destruction in Darfur than the rebels, shows that it is the Khartoum regime that is pampered, not the rebels. This perverse balancing of moral equities prior to peace talks scheduled to take place in Sirte, Libya has played directly into the broader strategy of the regime. These ruthless survivalists envision, with terrifying plausibility, a peace process owned by no one, poorly prepared for by AU and UN envoys, and presenting unfettered opportunities for the regime to cleave insistently to the ill-conceived Darfur peace agreement (DPA) as the only basis for negotiations.

The rebels, as well as Darfuris in camps for the displaced, overwhelmingly reject the DPA. Thus, with diplomatic pressure largely removed because of Khartoum's nominal commitment to a peace process, and with the disastrous consequences of the rebel attack on Haskanita, the regime intends to move toward a final military solution of its Darfur problem. Hundreds of thousands of civilian Darfuris are poised to die.

This renewed military solution has already begun in earnest, and Darfur appears on the brink of a resumption of full-scale war. Khartoum has in recent days attacked a number of targets, including humanitarians and civilians, and is gathering its forces across this deeply threatened region. The town of Haskanita, which came under Khartoum's control following the rebel attack on the nearby AU outpost, has been completely burned to the ground by Khartoum's regular forces, together with the Janjaweed militia. All the surrounding ethnically African villages have been abandoned, according to Suleiman Jamous, the most respected and credible of the rebel leaders, who also reports that during a rampage of several days more than 100 civilians were killed. The Associated Press has reported that 15,000 civilians were forced to flee the area. Some 130km to the west, according to numerous reliable reports, the town of Muhajeria was bombed on Monday by one of Khartoum's Antonov aircraft. Amnesty International reports that the plane was painted white, the colour of UN aircraft. At least 40 civilians were killed in this town of 5,000, which also hosts some 45,000 displaced civilians. We should bear in mind that all offensive aerial military flights are prohibited by the March 2005 UN Security Council Resolution 1591, a prohibition that Khartoum regularly ignores because of tepid criticism from precisely the international community Brahimi invokes as pampering the rebels.

There are threats far to the northwest, as well. Amnesty International and others warned on Tuesday that Khartoum is massing its forces near at least six towns in North Darfur, including Tine, Kornoy, Baru and Kutum. Tine is approximately 500km from Haskanita. The Group of 19, comprising many of the most honourable of the rebel commanders, dominates militarily in North Darfur and had nothing to do with the attack on the AU peacekeepers near Haskanita; indeed, at least one leader tried desperately to halt the attack beforehand. And yet a major military offensive by Khartoum is clearly in the offing, targeting this most potent source of rebel resistance.

Perhaps most ominously, Nyala - capital of South Darfur, the largest town in the region and previously thought one of the safest - is on the brink of a security collapse. Khartoum's forces in this area are attacking elements of the rebel faction of Minni Minawi. Reports from the ground in and near Nyala indicate that UN humanitarian organizations have begun withdrawing their non-essential personnel. If international nongovernmental aid workers also withdraw, some of the very largest camps for displaced persons in Darfur will be without assistance and - in the absence of international witnesses - vulnerable to violent assault. A number of expatriate humanitarian workers have also recently been expelled from the Nyala region by Khartoum.

And yet those who have been most critical of the rebel attack on the AU are evidently willing to countenance these attacks by Khartoum. The demonizing of the rebels has gone far beyond what can possibly be justified, even as a willingness to condemn Khartoum for its years of massive atrocity crimes has in many quarters atrophied to the point of merely perfunctory criticism.

Here it is important to recall something of the history of the Darfur conflict, as this history is increasingly distorted or simply ignored. The rebellion commonly dated to February 2003 grew out of years of severe economic and political marginalization by Khartoum, as well as antecedent ethnically targeted violence, much of it orchestrated by the National Islamic Front regime through Arab militias. The late 1990s saw especially intense attacks on the Massalit, an African tribal group that has had over 95% of its villages in Darfur destroyed over the last decade.

Since Khartoum began its genocidal counter-insurgency war after rebel military successes of early 2003, the ensuing destruction has been savagely comprehensive. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Africans have been killed; tens of thousands of African women and girls have been raped; the vast majority of African villages have been burned, along with food and seed stocks. Precious water wells have been poisoned with human or animal corpses. Agricultural implements have been destroyed; mature fruit trees cut down. The notorious Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal articulated the regime's intention in an August 2004 memorandum: "Change the demography of Darfur and empty it of African tribes."

When we assess current rebel violence, intransigence and fractiousness, we risk hopelessly distorting the nature of the rebellion and continuing resistance if we ignore the clear evidence of Khartoum's strategy of genocidal destruction. Similarly, if we ignore the regime's record of genocide - in Darfur, but also in the Nuba Mountains and the oil regions of southern Sudan - then the baseline for any peace process will also be badly distorted.

Confident that such distortions and ignorance will prevail, Khartoum has moved decisively onto the military offensive. This in turn will make it even harder to persuade rebel leaders to attend the peace talks. Historical myopia, excessive criticism of the rebel groups and growing international unwillingness to acknowledge the realities of genocidal destruction have brought Khartoum steadily closer to a final solution of its Darfur problem.

Darfur: Rebels Call for Probe into Attack, US Evacuates All Staff

From Reuters

Darfur's former rebels on Thursday called for an international investigation into an attack on their forces in Muhajiriya, where at least 45 were killed and dozens injured.

The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) blames Sudan's army for the attack, although it has denied any involvement.

"There has to be an international investigation immediately," Minni Arcua Minnawi, the head of the SLA who became presidential adviser in Khartoum after his was the only rebel group to sign a May 2006 peace deal.

"We are committed to the peace and the ceasefire but we want the government to not repeat any action like this."

The attack on Muhajiriya, Minnawi's main town, was the latest in an upsurge of violence in southern Darfur after the worst attack on African Union peacekeepers since they deployed, killing and wounding at least 20 and destroying their base in Haskanita.

A U.N. statement said "tens of civilians were killed and wounded, and tens are reported missing, including children".

Minnawi said at least 40 civilians were killed and five of their soldiers.

Two aid agencies working in the town evacuated 29 staff after they were trapped in their compounds by the fighting.

Minnawi said his movement had written a formal complaint to the United Nations and African Union about the assault.

The army blamed tribal clashes between the Zaghawa and Maaliya in the area. Minnawi's party accused Khartoum earlier this year of arming the Arab Maaliya tribe.

"This is the behaviour of the government. They will never commit to any agreement," Minnawi told Reuters from Darfur.

"This will have a negative effect on peace talks," he said.

Minnawi is in Darfur ahead of peace talks set for Oct. 27 in Libya, and is due to meet rebel factions who reject last year's deal to persuade them to attend talks and unify their ranks.

Since the 2006 deal, rebels have split into more than a dozen factions and formerly pro-government militias have turned on each other, creating a chaotic security environment which the AU peacekeeping force has been unable to quell.

In a report made public on Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "extremely concerned" about the "unacceptable" violence in the vast western Sudanese region, which he said was "not contributing to an atmosphere conducive to the peace talks".

He said the attack on the AU peacekeepers "confirms that the ... force which will be deployed to Darfur must be sufficiently robust to defend itself from spoilers and protect civilians from attack". A 26,000-strong AU-U.N. peacekeeping force is planned.

The Libyan talks will be between the Sudanese government and a range of Darfur rebel movements to try to end the four-year-old conflict. They will be jointly mediated by the United Nations and the African Union.

Mostly non-Arabs took up arms in early 2003 accusing Khartoum of neglect. International experts estimate 200,000 have died and 2.5 million driven from their homes in 4-1/2 years of fighting.

Khartoum puts the death toll at 9,000 and says the West has exaggerated the conflict in Darfur.

The violence has cast a shadow over attempts to bring all rebel groups into the peace process.

"It highlights the urgent need for a new, broad based ceasefire ... that reflects the multitude of armed actors on the ground today in Darfur, said think tank International Crisis Group's Sudan expert, Dave Mozersky.

"This should be the first priority for new talks."

The world's largest aid operation has been closed in by the renewed fighting, with movement severely restricted and most aid workers travelling only by air after a spate of carjackings.

The United Nations said it had relocated its staff from Tawila town in North Darfur after fighting there two days ago. Amnesty International warned an offensive in North Darfur was imminent as government troops amassed in towns.

The U.S. embassy said it was temporarily evacuating all its staff from Darfur, including USAID and other State Department employees.

Darfur: Land Problems Delaying Roll-Out of UN Peace Mission

From the UN News Center

The timeline for implementing the hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping operation in Darfur is being delayed because of difficulties in obtaining land to house the mission offices and staff accommodations and problems relating to the list of troop-contributing countries, says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In his latest progress report on the mission, which is known as UNAMID, Mr. Ban writes that the UN is waiting for feedback from the Sudanese Government on the list of troop-contributing countries.

“It is of critical importance that the Government extend the support and cooperation necessary to resolve the issues pertaining to land, landing rights for United Nations aircraft and the finalization of the list of troop-contributing countries for UNAMID,” he says.

The Security Council authorized the creation of UNAMID earlier this year to try to quell the violence in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2.2 million others forced to flee their homes since 2003 because of fighting between rebels, Government forces and allied Janjaweed militia.

Later this month, the UN and AU are co-convening peace negotiations in neighbouring Libya between the Sudanese Government and the rebels to try to reach a political solution to the conflict.

In his report Mr. Ban expresses concern about the continuing violence across Darfur, particularly the recent spike in attacks, which he warns “is not contributing to an atmosphere conducive to the peace talks” in Libya.

He also voices concern about the fragmentation of the rebel groups and their lack of unity ahead of the Libya talks, adding that is paramount that all parties enter the negotiation process well prepared and seriously committed to trying to reach a final settlement to the conflict as soon as possible.

DRC: Rebel Seeks Ceasefire

From Reuters

Congolese renegade General Laurent Nkunda called for another ceasefire on Wednesday between his soldiers and government troops, saying he was ready to start integrating his fighters once again into the national army.

The announcement was a sudden about-face by the rebel leader, who abandoned a previous month-old U.N.-brokered ceasefire on Monday amid renewed fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern North Kivu province.

"We want a ceasefire ... I'm looking for our partner MONUC (the U.N. mission in the Congo) to push the government forces to a ceasefire," Nkunda told Reuters by telephone from North Kivu.

He said he was ready to resume the integration of his fighters into the Congolese national army, as demanded by President Jospeh Kabila's government and the United Nations as part of efforts to pacify the vast, former Belgian colony.

Nkunda, who led a 2004 rebellion to protect Congo's Tutsi minority in the ethnically-mixed east, accuses Kabila of supporting Rwandan Hutu rebels -- ethnic enemies of the Tutsi.

His call for a ceasefire came after the army's top commander in North Kivu said government soldiers had retaken three villages, killing 20 rebels in two days of clashes.

"Their bombs are falling on the population. If this continues there will be many losses among the population," Nkunda said, referring to the government offensive.

The government had given Nkunda until Oct. 19 to start sending his troops back for integration into mixed army brigades -- a process agreed in a January peace deal which fell apart in August when the general's men deserted the units in droves.

Nkunda said he was ready to send an initial 500 of his fighters to be progressively integrated into the mixed brigades.

He offered no casualty estimates from the recent fighting.

But earlier, General Vainqueur Mayala, the army's top commander in North Kivu, said government forces had recaptured the villages of Karuba, Humure, and Ngungu.

"On the ground, we saw around 20 bodies abandoned by the insurgents," Mayala said.

Asked about media reports that 100 fighters had been killed, including 16 government soldiers, Mayala said no army troops had died in the operations.

Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission said on Wednesday six government soldiers had been wounded in the battles, but there was no independent confirmation of the death toll put forward by Mayala. A Nkunda spokesman disputed the figure.

In the recent fighting, artillery and machinegun fire has forced hundreds of families from their homes, worsening a humanitarian crisis in North Kivu where some 370,000 have fled fighting so far this year.

The province, which borders with Uganda and Rwanda, saw two weeks of heavy clashes in August and early September.

Kabila denies supporting the Rwandan Hutu rebels in North Kivu, who are accused of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide that saw the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

MONUC has placed responsibility for the renewed clashes in the province squarely on Nkunda and warned that, though it favours a negotiated solution, it had not ruled out force.

DRC: Congo's Rape War

An op-ed by John Holmes in the Los Angeles Times

DESPITE MANY WARNINGS, nothing quite prepared me for what I heard last month from survivors of a sexual violence so brutal it staggers the imagination and mocked my notions of human decency. I cannot find the words to describe what I

heard from the girls and women in Panzi Hospital, located in South Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, near the epicenter of one of the world's major humanitarian crises. What I do know is that I am not the same person now as when I walked into that hospital.

As a United Nations official with a special brief for humanitarian affairs, I have seen many people around the globe suffering under truly tragic circumstances. But Congo is different. Its long-running conflict has always been a brutal one, having claimed nearly 4 million lives between 1998 and 2004 -- the equivalent of five Rwandan genocides. And although the war formally ended years ago, fighting has continued in the eastern part of the country, where the national army is battling local and foreign militias in a struggle involving unresolved ethnic conflicts, regional power dynamics and the powerful tug of greed, with all sides vying for a slice of Congo's rich mineral resources.

One of these militias is the FDLR, the Hutu ex-genocidaire group that fled from Rwanda to Congo in 1994 and that continues to harbor wider political ambitions. Civilians are deliberately targeted and harassed by these groups in a climate of almost total impunity.

From the start, sexual violence has been a particularly awful -- and shockingly common -- feature of the conflict in Congo. Women and girls are particularly vulnerable in this predatory environment, with rape and other forms of sexual abuse committed by all sides on an astonishing scale. Since 2005, more than 32,000 cases of rape and sexual violence have been registered in South Kivu alone. But that's only a fraction of the total; many -- perhaps most -- attacks go unreported. Victims of rape are held in shame by Congolese society and frequently are ostracized by their families and communities. The ripple effect of these attacks goes far beyond the individual victim, destroying family and community bonds and leaving children orphaned and/or HIV positive.

Panzi Hospital is housed in rambling quarters outside the city of Bukavu in South Kivu. Of the 15,000 victims of sexual violence treated there since 1999, an estimated two-thirds or more are victims of the FDLR. One-third of the victims are children.

At the hospital, I met a 16-year-old girl, shy but still determined to tell her story. She had been abducted by the FDLR and held as a sex slave for months of unfathomable horrors before she managed to escape, pregnant and alone. I heard from other women who had been raped multiple times, often in front of other villagers or their families. Panzi staff members tell of a woman who was returning from working her fields when she was accosted by seven soldiers who gang-raped her. The last rapist forced the barrel of his gun inside her and pulled the trigger, literally blowing apart her genitals. We heard repeated stories from doctors and other staffers at the hospital of similar incidents involving bayonets or sticks as well as guns.

This sexual violence is an affront not only to the body but to the soul and dignity of every woman assaulted. It is a stain on everyone with influence or authority in Congolese society. Yet somehow it continues, amid widespread indifference and in a climate of impunity, with no functioning justice system to speak of. Even those few who are convicted and jailed in the attacks are likely to "escape." Leaders of the national and provincial governments, military commanders, the Catholic Church and other religious authorities and cultural and sports figures in Congo must do much more to change the culture that allows this to happen.

In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia recognized systematic rape in Bosnia as a crime against humanity and prosecuted a number of those responsible. In eastern Congo, such crimes continue unpunished. The U.N. is working with Congolese authorities to prevent sexual violence and abuse by the security forces through awareness training and the creation of more disciplined and professional units, and to strengthen the judicial and penal systems. It is also seeking to increase direct assistance to victims, ensure the recruitment of more women in the U.N. peacekeeping force and strengthen protection efforts for girls and women living in hot-spot areas. Last year's national elections, supported by the U.N., were an important step forward and helped put an end to major fighting in much of the country, although not in the east. Since 2004, the number of displaced people has dropped from 3.3 million to 1.2 million.

But the country's needs remain enormous. In any case, there can surely be no dignified, peaceful future for Congolese society as long as its mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters are subject to these most dehumanizing of crimes.

Many of those I met in Congo asked, not unreasonably, what difference my visit would make in their lives. I told them I could not promise miracles but that I would do all in my power to draw attention to their needs while pushing hard to address the political root causes of their suffering. I am committed to that. But sustained pressure is needed from around the world to make clear that this kind of shocking and appalling sexual violence must not be tolerated any longer.

Genocide: UN More Able to Prevent Genocide, Conference Told

From Reuters

More than a decade after the United Nations was criticized for failing to stop genocide in Rwanda, the world body is more able to prevent another such atrocity, scholars and U.N. officials said on Wednesday.

The idea that internal affairs were outside the scope of international involvement had been a "crucial inhibitor to effective responses over a generation," Gareth Evans, president of the International Crisis Group, told a U.N. conference.

But faced with violence like that in Sudan's Darfur region -- where some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes since 2003 -- the world had been more ready to accept the need to intervene on behalf of vulnerable populations, conference participants said, even if intervention has been too little, too late.

Since assuming leadership of the United Nations at the start of this year, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has increased the mandate of his Special Representative for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities.

The U.N. Security Council is considering an additional post proposed by Ban -- special adviser for the responsibility to protect.

In January, the world body will establish a Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect at the City University of New York.

"There now really is a feeling that the international community as a whole has the responsibility to help states meet their responsibility, and that's a very big change historically," said Edward Luck, a U.S. academic who has been named as Ban's adviser on the responsibility to protect. The appointment needs Security Council approval.

But Jean-Marie Guehenno, U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, sounded a note of caution.

"We've been haunted in the last 15 years by what happened in Yugoslavia and what happened in Rwanda. And none of us can avoid the question, would that happen again?" he said.

"And I think we have to be honest. There has been some progress in the international discussion. But does that mean that it will be fundamentally different tomorrow? Not necessarily."

In Rwanda, some 800,000 people were killed in 1994 in a 100-day orgy of violence perpetrated mainly by ethnic Hutus against ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The slaughter was triggered when the plane of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down.

Genocide: Turkey Angry Over House Armenian Vote

From the New York Times

Turkey reacted angrily today to a House committee vote in Washington on Wednesday to condemn the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey in World War I as an act of genocide, calling the decision “unacceptable.”

In a rare and uncharacteristically strong condemnation, President Abdullah Gul criticized the vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee in a statement to the semi-official Anatolian News Agency, and warned that the decision could work against the United States.

“Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games,” Mr. Gul said. “This is not a type of attitude that works to the benefit of, and suits, representatives of a great power like the Unites States of America. This unacceptable decision of the committee, like similar ones in the past, has no validity and is not worth of the respect of the Turkish people.”

The Turkish foreign ministry, in a statement today, warned that relations with the United States will be made more complicated. “The committee’s approval of this resolution was an irresponsible move which, at a greatly sensitive time, will make relations with a friend and ally” more difficult, the Anatolian News Agency quoted the foreign ministry statement as saying, according to Reuters.

The House decision rebuffed an intense campaign by the White House and earlier warnings from Turkey’s government that the vote would gravely strain its relations with the United States.

The vote was nonbinding and so largely symbolic, but its consequences could reach far beyond bilateral relations and spill into the war in Iraq.

Turkish officials and lawmakers warned that if the resolution was approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the American war effort, which includes permission to ship essential supplies through Turkey and northern Iraq.

Before the Wednesday vote, President Bush appeared on the South Lawn of the White House and implored the House not to take up the issue, only to have a majority of the committee disregard his warning at the end of the day, by a vote of 27 to 21.

“We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,” Mr. Bush said in remarks that, reflecting official American policy, carefully avoided the use of the word genocide. “This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror.”

A total of 1.5 million Armenians were killed beginning in 1915 in a systematic campaign by the fraying Ottoman Empire to drive Armenians out of eastern Turkey. Turks acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died but contend that the deaths, along with thousands of others, resulted from the war that ended with the creation of modern Turkey in 1923.

The House resolution was introduced early in the current session of Congress and has quietly moved forward over the last few weeks. But it provoked a fierce lobbying fight that pitted the politically influential Armenian-American population against the Turkish government, which hired equally influential former lawmakers like Robert L. Livingston, Republican of Louisiana, and Richard A. Gephardt, the former Democratic House majority leader, who backed a similar resolution when he was in Congress.

Backers of the resolution said Congressional action was overdue.

“Despite President George Bush twisting arms and making deals, justice prevailed,” said Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat of California and a sponsor of the resolution. ”For if we hope to stop future genocides we need to admit to those horrific acts of the past.”

The issue of the Armenian genocide has perennially transfixed Congress and bedeviled presidents of both parties. Ronald Reagan was the only president publicly to call the killings genocide, but his successors have avoided the term.

When the issue last arose, in 2000, a similar resolution also won approval by a House committee, but President Clinton then succeeded in persuading a Republican speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, to withdraw the measure before the full House could vote. That time, too, Turkey had warned of canceling arms deals and withdrawing support for American air forces then patrolling northern Iraq under the auspices of the United Nations.

The new speaker, Nancy Pelosi, faced pressure from Democrats — especially colleagues in California, New Jersey and Michigan, with their large Armenian populations — to revive the resolution again after her party gained control of the House and Senate this year.

There is Democratic support for the resolution in the Senate, but it is unlikely to move in the months ahead because of Republican opposition and a shortage of time. Still, the Turkish government has made it clear that it would regard House passage alone as a harsh American indictment.

The sharply worded Turkish warnings against the resolution, especially the threats to cut off support for the American war in Iraq, seemed to embolden some of the resolution’s supporters. “If they use this to destabilize our solders in Iraq, well, then shame on them,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat from New York who voted for it.

The Democratic leadership, however, appeared divided. Representative Rahm Emanuel, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, who worked in the Clinton White House when the issue came up in 2000, opposes the resolution.

In what appeared to be an effort to temper the anger caused by the issue, Democrats said they were considering a parallel resolution that would praise Turkey’s close relations with the United States even as the full House prepares to consider a resolution that blames the forerunner of modern Turkey for one of the worst crimes in history.

“Neither of these resolutions is necessary,” a White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said Wednesday evening. He said that Mr. Bush was “very disappointed” with the vote.

Mr. Bush discussed the resolution in the White House on Wednesday with his senior national security aides. Speaking by secure video from Baghdad, the senior American officials in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, raised the resolution and warned that its passage could harm the war effort in Iraq, senior Bush aides said.

Appearing outside the West Wing after that meeting, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates noted that about 70 percent of all air cargo sent to Iraq passed through or came from Turkey, as did 30 percent of fuel and virtually all the new armored vehicles designed to withstand mines and bombs.

“They believe clearly that access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be very much put at risk if this resolution passes and the Turks react as strongly as we believe they will,” Mr. Gates said, referring to the remarks of General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker.

Turkey severed military ties with France after its Parliament voted in 2006 to make the denial of the Armenian genocide a crime.

As the committee prepared to vote Wednesday, Mr. Bush, the American ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, and other officials cajoled lawmakers by phone.

Representative Mike Pence, a conservative Republican from Indiana who has backed the resolution in the past, said Mr. Bush persuaded him to change his position and vote no. He described the decision as gut-wrenching, underscoring the emotions stirred in American politics by a 92-year-old question.

“While this is still the right position,” Mr. Pence said, referring to the use of the term genocide, “it is not the right time.”

The House Democratic leadership met Wednesday morning with Turkey’s ambassador to Washington, Nabi Sensoy, and other Turkish officials, who argued against moving ahead with a vote. But Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who now holds Mr. Gephardt’s old job as majority leader, said he and Ms. Pelosi would bring the resolution to the floor before Congress adjourned this year.

Darfur: SLA-Minawi Abandons Ceasefire

From AFP

Fighting has erupted between the only Darfur rebel group to have signed a 2006 peace accord and Sudanese troops, the United Nations said on Wednesday after the rebels accused Khartoum of attacking a town the rebels control.

The United Nations mission in Sudan said that exchanges of fire took place on Tuesday between the Sudan Liberation Army faction of Minni Minawi and the Sudanese army near the north Darfur town of Tawila.

"The circumstances of the incident remain unclear," The UN said in a statement that did not mention casualties. UN staff in the area have been evacuated to Darfur's main town of El-Fasher, it said.

Violence has been mounting in the troubled Sudanese region in the run-up to new peace negotiations set for the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on October 27.

The latest clashes came after Minawi's Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) faction, the only rebel group to have signed the peace deal, had threatened to take up arms once more after it said more than 50 people were killed in a government-backed attack on the south Darfur town of Muhajariya.

"From now on, our movement will not stand by and do nothing in the face of such attacks," Arku Suleiman Dhahia, commander in chief of the SLA said on Tuesday.

"If this happens again, we go back to square one, which means war and it will be worse than the one before [the peace deal was signed] 2006," he told journalists in Khartoum.

As a result of the attack, Minawi, now a special adviser to President Omar al-Bashir, cut short a visit to Darfur in which he had been trying to persuade other rebel factions to join this month's peace conference in Libya.

The Khartoum government denied any involvement in the attack, blaming it on "clashes between tribes in the region".

The UN said that about 6 000 people had fled Muhajariya to seek refuge around a nearby African Union military base.

"Other residents reportedly fled to neighbouring villages and the surrounding areas, leaving the town, which had a population estimated at 20 000 inhabitants, completely deserted."

It said that a large number of shops and houses in Muhajariya had been burnt to the ground.

Darfur: Attack "Targeted Women and Children"

From IRIN

The recent attack on Muhajiriya town in South Darfur, in which 45 people died and thousands fled their homes, mainly targeted women, children and the elderly, a rebel faction said.

"The government moved forces into the town two days earlier," Mohammed Bashir, spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), said from Khartoum, the capital. "With air cover, they attacked the town, burnt down half of it and killed mainly children, women and the elderly."

The Sudanese army denied involvement in the 8 October attack, saying violence in Muhajiriya was a result of "tribal fighting between the citizens of the area".

Bashir said residents and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled their homes were in desperate need of assistance. "They fled into [the bush]," he told IRIN by telephone on 10 October. "Although the town is calm now, they are still scared of going back to their homes."

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 45,000 internally displaced people were being assisted in and around Muhajiriya.

National and international aid workers from two NGOs were temporarily relocated after the attack, disrupting humanitarian operations.

"There are 20 wounded civilians who need to be taken to hospital," Bashir said. The SLA faction of Minni Minnawi, who signed a May 2006 peace deal and joined the Khartoum government, controls the area.

Amnesty International said the attack was supported by an Antonov, which had been painted in white UN colours. Since 2005, Sudan has been prohibited from offensive flights over Darfur and has been criticised for painting aircraft white, it said.

But spokesman Brigadier Osman Mohamed Al-Aghbash said the army had nothing to do with the incidents at Muhajiriya, adding that its planes had only conducted reconnaissance missions in Haskanita area under an arrangement with the African Union (AU).

"If these kinds of attacks continue, we will not sit without defending ourselves," the SLA spokesman warned. "It will also destroy trust ahead of the Libya talks."

The talks due to start in Sirte on 27 October are expected to bring together Darfur's armed factions and the Sudanese government to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict in the region. Fears have, however, arisen that recent attacks could force some of the groups to boycott the event.

Amnesty, in a statement, warned that more attacks were imminent in northern Darfur. Sudanese forces, it added, were gathering in large numbers in at least six towns, including Tine, Kornoy, Um Baru, Kutum.

"The northern area of North Darfur is under the control of armed opposition groups and it looks as though the Sudan Armed Forces want to attack this area before peace talks scheduled to take place in Libya before the end of the month," according to Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of Amnesty's Africa Programme.

"We fear that civilians will once more suffer killing and displacement, with no force able to protect them."

The Muhajiriya attack followed an earlier one on Haskanita on 29 September. Ten AU peacekeepers were killed. Aid workers said that attack was carried out by an armed opposition group, but the town was occupied by Sudanese forces afterwards.

A UN assessment mission later found Haskanita had been burnt down. Sudanese authorities said the team had exaggerated its findings, adding that only the market was destroyed by a fire. The AU is investigating.

"The gathering of forces in the north, the burning of Haskanita last week, and yesterday's attack on Muhajiriya show the vital importance of ensuring that UNAMID [proposed UN-AU peacekeeping force] is deployed as soon as possible and has the resources available to protect civilians," said Hondora.

Preparations to deploy the force are ongoing, but the mission still lacks ground transport, light tactical helicopters and transport helicopters, according to the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Affairs, Jean-Marie Guéhenno.

Aid workers fear the upsurge in violence will further restrict the ability of the few humanitarian workers left in Darfur to reach thousands of vulnerable civilians.

Darfur: Preparations on Track for Peace Talks

From VOA

The latest attempt at Darfur peace talks is scheduled to begin October 27th in Sirte, Libya. However, the lead-up to the talks has seen an increase in violence in Darfur and threats by some rebel leaders not to attend.

For a preview of the talks, VOA English to Africa Service Reporter Joe De Capua spoke with George Ola-Davies, who’s with the UN/AU Joint Mediation Support Team for Darfur. He’s also spokesman for Jan Eliasson, the UN Special Envoy for Darfur. From Khartoum, Ola-Davies described preparations for the talks.

“Preparations are in high gear and I think everything is in place. The team is set. We’re both working together. I mean the Joint Mediation Support Team that is made up of the United Nations and the Africa Union…we have been talking to the parties to the talks. And if Mr. Eliasson is here this week it is to continue that negotiation with the team. And I am confident that things will be working out well,” he says.

But what of the increasing violence in Darfur and the threat by some not to talk part in the talks, will that affect preparations? Ola-Davies says, “No, it will not affect the preparations per se. Everyone is aware of the fact that, yes, issues on the ground and events on the ground are not in good sted for (the) negotiation process, but I think we’re confident that they’ll be participating. And we’re hoping they will cease hostilities before the start of negotiations.”

He says that the parties to the conflict “have to work toward negotiation. They have to talk among themselves. They have to settle things through dialogue…there can be no political gain through using violence.”

There’s no firm timetable for the length of the scheduled negotiations. “There is a schedule and that is it starts on the 27th of October. But the nature of negotiations is such that you cannot keep it open ended. And by the same token you cannot set a deadline to say that it will finish this week or next week or three weeks from now. No, there are issues to be discussed and we’re going to be discussing those issues. We will take time to discuss them.”

Darfur: MSF Pull Out of Town Amid Fighting

From the BBC

The medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres has pulled 16 staff out of a Sudanese rebel-controlled town in south Darfur after fierce fighting this week.

MSF said its staff left after patients fled the only hospital in Muhajiriya and mortar fire intensified on Tuesday.

The only Darfur rebel group to sign a 2006 peace accord blames the army for the assault and says dozens have died.

The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) says it is now reviewing its relationship with the Sudan government.

MSF said the evacuation means that local people are now in urgent need of medical care.

Spokesman Seif Haroun for the faction led by Minni Minnawi told the BBC's Network Africa programme that it was still committed to attend peace talks in Libya later this month but warned that it would do whatever it could to protect its people.

The SLA had earlier said the fighting came as "a stab in the back" for their alliance with Khartoum.

The Sudanese government has denied involvement in the attack

The UN reports an upsurge of attack across a large number of locations in Darfur,

Amnesty International has warned that Sudan's Armed Forces are gathering in large numbers in at least six Darfuri towns.

The London-based human rights organisation said it had received credible reports that the Sudanese army was close to the towns of Kornoy, Um Baru, Kutum and Tine in northern Darfur.

A separate report spoke of a clash between soldiers and a rebel group in Tine, which is close to the Chadian border.

Observers say the upsurge in fighting is an attempt to gain ground ahead of the peace talks due on the 27 October, but the BBC's Amber Henshaw in Khartoum says this latest spate of violence does not bode well.

Intensive diplomatic efforts are underway to ensure the talks take place, with the United Nations Special Envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson conducting meetings in Khartoum following discussions with the AU over the last few days.

Mr Eliasson is holding talks with Sudanese officials as well as a number of regional governments, including Libya, Eritrea, Egypt and Chad.

At the same time rebel leaders are being airlifted to the southern Sudanese capital, Juba, to try to find a common position on Friday and Saturday.

The attack on the SLA-controlled town comes just 10 days after the African Union (AU) base in nearby Haskanita was raided by armed men, presumed at the time to be rebels.

Ten AU peacekeepers were killed in the raid, while equipment was destroyed or looted.