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Sudanese Movements Merge In U.S.-Backed Group
NAIROBI, May 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The two rival movements in southern Sudan announced a merger Monday as Khartoum insisted that the U.S.-backed opposition would heighten the conflict.
Under the unity agreement, signed at a news conference here, the Sudan People's Democratic Front (SPDF) led by Riek Machar, will dissolve itself and join the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) headed by John Garang, officials of the two groups said.
Senior SPLA officials Justin Yaac Arop and George Bureng Nyombe, and the SPDF's Taban Deng Gai and James Kok signed the merger declaration.
Sudan, meanwhile, bitterly criticized the United States for offering $3 million to Sudan's opposition alliance, saying it would perpetuate Sudan's civil war and damage relations with Washington.
The foreign ministry said the financial backing to the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would "fan the flames of the conflict and prolong the war," in a statement published Monday by the official SUNA news agency.
Khartoum has been fighting a civil war for 18 years against southern-based rebels led by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which is part of the NDA.
However, the SPLA reiterated its commitment to what it terms as "the peace process" spearheaded by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the resolutions of the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella organization bringing together the SPLA and several northern-based opposition groups.
The NDA has been involved in the conflict since northern opposition parties joined the fighting in 1995.
The foreign ministry said the decision was "disappointing" and further proof of U.S. "partiality and insincerity" in dealing with the conflict.
Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir criticized Washington for offering assistance to the SPLA, saying it was responsible for worsening relations with Khartoum, SUNA reported Monday.
Beshir was speaking at a meeting of the ruling National Congress party on Sunday, SUNA said.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that the United States would soon name an envoy to Sudan as part of more active efforts to resolve the country's long-running war.
Powell also defended the U.S. decision to give $3 million to the NDA, saying it was "not going to extend the conflict" and would boost the group's capacity to negotiate politically.
The ministry statement said the U.S. assistance was declared a day after the government had announced a cessation of aerial bombardment on southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan last week.
The statement called on the United Nations Security Council and the international community to "shoulder their responsibility and halt all forms of interference in Sudan's domestic affairs."
It stated that the united movement would fight against "genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery and displacement of our people by non-indigenous settlers from the north".
The strengthened SPLA would also "halt the vandalization and wanton looting of our oil and other natural resources by the illegitimate, fascist and Islamic fundamentalist regime in Khartoum."
Machar was previously number two in the SPLA, made up mainly of black southern animists and Christians who have been fighting for 18 years against what they call Arab and Islamic domination.
He defected to the government side in 1997 and was made assistant president and chairman of the governing body in Khartoum.
He resigned from those positions in February last year accusing the government of having sent troops to fight his soldiers in the southern Unity state and went back to the rebel side.
Machar comes from the Nuer ethnic group while Garang is a member of the Dinka community. Ethnic rivalry was one of the reasons for the original split of the SPLA in 1991, after which Machar created his own rebel movement.
Dinka and Nuer militias are pitted against each other in bloody warfare in several areas of southern Sudan.
The merger declaration deplored the "meaningless and regrettable loss of lives caused by internecine and inter-factional fighting as a result of our political differences, which only benefit the enemy."
The agreement provides for, among others issues, the immediate cessation of hostilities, the facilitation of distribution of humanitarian aid and the establishment of a military commission to reorganize the unified movement's military structures.
But the Sudanese foreign ministry warned Washington against siding with the SPLA, saying: "the U.S. will not be able to play the role of a neutral mediator unless it stops all forms of assistance to the rebel movement."
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