نيويورك تايمز: ثوار الشرق لم يشكلوا الخطر الذى يشكله ثوار دارفور على الدكتاتورية العسكرية !!!

Quote: Sudan’s Government Signs Peace Accord With Rebel Group in East By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN Published: October 15, 2006 KHARTOUM, Sudan, Oct. 14 — The Sudanese government signed a peace deal on Saturday with a small rebel movement in the eastern part of the country, an agreement intended to end fighting that has lasted 10 years though with nowhere near the intensity of the conflict in Darfur. According to state-run news media, Mustafa Osman Ismail, a government negotiator, and Mussa Mohammed Ahmed, chief of the Eastern Front, signed the deal at the presidential palace in Asmara, Eritrea. According to Agence France-Presse, Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, called it an example of “Africans solving an African problem without foreign help,” a clear reference to his government’s continuing refusal to allow United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur. The rebels in eastern Sudan never posed the threat to the military dictatorship that Darfur’s insurgents have, though they conducted hit-and-run guerrilla attacks on government forces for some of the same reasons. Eastern Sudan, like Darfur, is a poor, neglected area where many people feel disenfranchised. Under the accord, the Eastern Front will get more representation in the national and regional administrations, including high-ranking posts in Khartoum, the capital. The Darfur crisis, meanwhile, continues, with more fighting in El Fasher, one of Darfur’s bigger towns, and reported clashes along Sudan’s lawless border with Chad. President Bush’s special envoy for Sudan, Andrew S. Natsios, arrived in Khartoum on Friday night to begin meetings with top Sudanese officials. Few here expect President Bashir to back down from his refusal to allow United Nations peacekeepers to patrol Darfur. Darfur is patrolled by African Union peacekeepers who are underfinanced and have failed so far to stop the bloodshed. The African Union has agreed to keep its peacekeepers through the end of the year in the hope that a bigger and better-equipped United Nations force will replace them.