The UK warned Darfur's rebel groups Oct. 8 they could be excluded from the peace process if they boycott talks due to be held in Libya later this month. London's Minister for Africa, Lord Malloch Brown, said those who opted out "should understand the consequences." (BBC, Oct. 8) The comments came the same day Sudanese government troops and allied militias attacked and overran Muhajiriya, a town controlled by the Minni Minnawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)—the only faction to sign the 2006 peace deal. Khalid Abakar, a senior representative from the SLA, said: "Government planes have attacked Muhajiriya, which belongs to us, and government forces and Janjawid militia are fighting our forces." A UN official said the assault may be retaliation for a rebel attack on an African Union peacekeeper base to the north in Haskanita last week. Some members of the rebel factions involved in the attack are believed to have moved into Muhajeria. (AlJazeera, AP, Oct. 8)

Abu Mansur Robow, ex-deputy defense secretary with Somalia's ousted Islamic Courts movement, told Mogadishu radio Oct. 3 that his Shabaab resistance group has "nothing to do" with the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), recently founded by Somali opposition leaders in the Eritrean capital Asmara. Robow said al-Shabaab was "not satisfied" with the Asmara conference.

Over at the CIA, they must really be scratching their heads over Eritrea. It is hosting the exiled Islamist leaders of Somalia and is accused by Washington of backing Islamist insurgents there. But the New York Times reports Oct. 5 that it also hosts "more than half a dozen Darfur rebel groups" fighting the Islamist government of Sudan—including the United Front for Liberation and Development, which has been provided with its own offices by the Asmara regime, free of charge. The Times also points out that last year Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki "brokered a peace deal between the Sudanese government and rebels in a separate conflict in eastern Sudan that had ground on for 15 years and that cost thousands of lives." (This is a reference to the Beja region, although the Times, in its maddening way, does not mention it by name.) Is this a schizophrenic policy, or is there some consistency here that we're missing?

Twelve Nigerian troops were killed in a Sept. 30 attack on an African Union base at Haskanita, Darfur, the deadliest since AU forces were deployed in 2004. Thirty vehicles overran the base, with fifty troops still missing and seven seriously wounded. A spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) condemned the attack, but admitted it was led by breakaway commanders from his own movement, in conjunction with breakaway rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA). "There is a war going on between the rebels and the government, and the AU is crunched in the middle," a senior AU officer said.

by Vijay Prashad, Frontline, Chennai, India

In February, George W. Bush announced the creation of a new unified combatant command for Africa. After several years of deliberation, the Pentagon finally agreed to create the African Command (AFRICOM), which will relieve the European Command (EUCOM) and the Central Command (CENTCOM), which earlier shared responsibility for Africa.

Rebel commanders in Darfur are urging Abdel Wahid el-Nur, founder of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), to agree to go to peace talks with the Sudanese government slated to open at the end of October in Libya under the auspices of the UN and the African Union. "We want him to come and state his demands at the negotiating table," Jar el Neby, an SLA commander, told Reuters. "His refusal to participate in the negotiations does not serve our cause." Abu Bakr Kadu, a commander with the SLA Unity faction, told Reuters: "We do not agree with Abdel Wahid's position on the negotiations." Last week the vice president of the government of semi-autonomous southern Sudan, Riek Machar, visited Nur in Paris in an attempt to persuade him to join the peace process.

Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin accused Norway of supporting "terrorist groups" based in Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan. "Norway tries to build a peace-keeping image, but cannot do so at the expense of the peace on the Horn of Africa," Mesfin told the Norwegian daily Aftenposten. "The soldiers in Eritrea are financed in full by Norway. By supporting those who destroy peace processes in our neighboring countries, Norway undermines the Ethiopian government’s peace work." Parliamentary Secretary Raymond Johansen in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry denied the Ethiopian Minister’s allegations. "Nothing he says is correct," Johansen said.

Tens of thousands packed Addis Ababa's main square for millennium festivities Sept. 11 that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said should mark a new beginning for Ethiopia. Meles said the occasion heralded a "glorious new page" in the country's history. "A thousand years from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome the fourth millennium, they shall say the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the end of the dark ages in Ethiopia. They shall say that the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the Ethiopian renaissance."