A semi-analysis feature from about a day ago by Barney Jopson of the "Financial Times"...
Counting rebels has been the preoccupation of observers at the Darfur peace talks that got off to a faltering start in Libya last weekend: who has turned up, how many troops do they command, and how much popular support do they have?
Boycotts threatened to scupper the process before it had begun, but it is clear that, even if all the rebels had come, their disparate diagnoses of Darfur’s problems would make it hard to find common demands to put to Sudan’s government.
The rebel groups have splintered numerous times in the past year – some consist simply of a commander, a satellite phone, and a few armed men in a pick-up truck – and estimates of their number at the weekend ranged from 12 to 28.
All of them want a ceasefire and government help to resettle the 2.5 [million] people forced from their homes by air attacks, state-sponsored militia raids, or inter-rebel and inter-tribal fighting.
“The problem of security is ultimately caused by the government,” says Ahmed Diraige, of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance. “People must get compensation for the property [that] they have lost, and they must be fed. They have nothing.”
Beyond that, rebels divide into three categories that are defined by contrasting views on how to end Darfur’s marginalisation, the underlying cause of an insurgency that began in 2003.
Those in the first category look at Darfur and its problems in isolation. They want Sudan’s wealth to be shared equitably with the region, and they want representation in the national parliament that is proportionate to its population of roughly 6 [million].
“The people of Darfur feel [that] their share of education and health services is less than [others']. There have been no development projects in Darfur, and there is no participation in decision-making,” says Mr Diraige.
Rebels in the second category have national visions, and say [that] Darfur’s problems can only be solved through an overhaul of the whole country’s politics: the region is only one of several that have suffered from a concentration of power and wealth in Khartoum.
One of the two most-important rebels boycotting the talks is Khalil Ibrahim, who leads a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), and has called for a radical restructuring of national government. The other is Abdul Wahid al-Nour, leader of a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, who has said [that] his goal was to transform Sudan from an Islamist-dominated state into a secular democracy.
The emergence of a national force of the politically downtrodden is a loathsome prospect for the Khartoum regime, because, with elections due in 2009, it could threaten its survival.
Equally intolerable, however, is the solution raised by the third category of Darfur rebels – secession. “The government tries to convince us it is a conflict over resources, but we have resources sufficient for 300 [million] people,” says a member of a Jem faction that split from Mr Ibrahim. “The right to self-determination is the final solution.”
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