Sudan 'drives Darfur rebels back'

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

Sudan says rebels from Darfur have now retreated from Omdurman, the capital Khartoum's twin city across the Nile, which came under attack on Saturday.
...
A rebel commander said the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) fighters was ready to strike again.

Sudan's government has also cut off diplomatic ties with Chad, blaming it for helping rebels launch the attack.

Both Chad and the Jem denied working together to launch the assault on Omdurman, which the rebels said they had taken control of.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7395248.stm

[ohio2007]

1. Chickens come back to roost ?

They hired these thugs.....
Now they want to blame Chad ?
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d45_1210509500

[ohio2007]

2. Boycott 'Genocide Games'? Sudan's Olympic athletes say no.

Khartoum, Sudan -
Ismail Ahmed Ismail is a Fur, from one of the Darfur farming tribes who have suffered hardest at the hands of janjaweed raiders and their Khartoum paymasters.

Abubaker Kaki Khamis is a member of an Arab tribe whose militias were the forerunner of the janjaweed.

But when they go on the road with the Sudanese athletics team, the two are roommates.

"We don't think: 'These are Fur, these are Arab,' " says Mr. Ismail at the ramshackle track and field stadium where they train amid dust and rubble. "It doesn't matter here."

The two are Sudan's brightest prospects for medals at the Beijing Olympics in August, despite having to train on a track riddled with cracks.

Yet their big day is in danger of being overshadowed by campaigners who are trying to use the Olympics to highlight China's poor record on human rights.

Darfur activists in the West have seized on the Beijing Olympics as a way to pressure China into ending its support for the Khartoum government, which is waging war against rebels in the war-torn western region. China consumes two thirds of Sudan's oil exports to fuel its voluminous economy and has sold military jets in return. Filmmaker Stephen Spielberg has already given up his role overseeing the opening ceremony of what campaigners are calling the Genocide Games.



snip
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080423/wl_csm/oteam

The dichotomy from the land behind the great wall

[On the Road]

3. I Thought This Civil War Was in an Obscure Corner of the Country

I am stunned to hear it's across the river from the capital.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Yeah, so did I

It's a big country, so to get that far across from Darfur is surprising - 400 miles, according to this report.

[On the Road]

5. It Makes Me Realize I Do Not Understand Darfur AT ALL

I figured this was the typical government oppression of local tribes in a rich resource area, like the Ogoni in Nigeria or something.

So now Chad is part of the picture. Since African countries don't generally invade each other, I guess this is a proxy war? I didn't even know Chad and Sudan were hostile.

[ohio2007]

6. Saudi Op Ed ( ie officially approved state controlled op/ed )

Chad-Sudan Standoff
13 May 2008

The arrest — and then release — in Khartoum of opposition Islamist leader Hassan Turabi is a bizarre twist to what has been a bizarre course of events. Saturday’s raid on the Sudanese capital by a Darfur rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), was a bolt out the blue. Visibly shocked, the government of President Omar Bashir has taken the view that this could not have happened without help


snip



The JEM — the most Islamist of all the myriad of Darfur rebel groups —certainly has had links with Turabi in the past and a faction, now split from it, is led by a former member of the republican guard of Chadian President Idriss Deby. Chad denies any involvement although the two countries have a history of interfering in each other.

This week’s attack, moreover, is a mirror image of a rebel assault on Chad’s capital three months ago, which the Chadians accused Khartoum of sponsoring. One of the great ironies in the present rivalry is that Deby would not be Chadian president but for Bashir. Having been forced to flee Chad, it was with Bashir’s support that he returned in 1990 at the head of an invasion force and captured the capital. The notion that Deby would link up with Islamists to attack the Sudanese is difficult to accept. He banned Islamist movements in Chad in 1996 and he has spent much time of late accusing Bashir of trying to export Islamism to sub-Saharan Africa.


snip

There are too many instances in Africa, particularly eastern Africa, of governments using rebel groups to destabilize neighbors and fight proxy wars.

snip


It would be unfortunate if the Darfur rebellion were to be taken over by extremist Islamists. The conflict is not about Islam. Both sides in the dispute are Muslim. It is an issue about ethnic cleansing and human rights. The JEM is already the most ambitious of the many Darfur rebel groups. It has already taken the fight to neighboring Kordofan province, attacked oil fields and threatened to drive foreign oil workers out of the country.

http://arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=109853&d=13&m=5&y=2008