Turabi says increase in attacks by JEM rebels likely in order to make themselves look big before coming to East Sudan peace talks

Sudan Tribune (Khartoum) report excerpt:

Turabi, who now heads his own opposition Popular Congress party, says that insurgents from the Justice and Equality Movement, currently fighting government forces in the western Darfur region as well as increasingly in the east, are a better bet for Sudan's future.

"On the ground they're not at all powerful in Darfur, but they're more intelligent, and they're more national. They think about the whole country."

While denying his reported links to the Islamist JEM, Turabi says that an increase in their attacks is likely ahead of peace talks for the east due to start in Asmara on June 13.

"They just want to assert themselves before they come to the negotiations, otherwise they are spoken to as an inferior. This is natural, all human beings are like that."

Nevertheless, Turabi's ideas are in many ways similar to those of the JEM, seeking a new form of Islamic democracy and rejecting the non-democratically elected caliphate system that predominated under early Islam.

"That was wrong. Everything is by consultation and it must be freedom for all, Muslims and non-Muslims. If someone attacks you with words, you must respond with words, if they attack your God, Allah, allow them to speak their minds."

[What a weasel. He changes colours to fit any bandwagon to jump on. See June 6 2006 Drnovsek and Prince Albert II agree on resolving Darfur crisis - JEM leader still in Slovenia? - Darfur's JEM rebel leader says of Darfur "We're going to have our own country."

And note May 28 2006: Turabi cancels London visit after entry visa delay - Sudan's Turabi calls for overthrow of Khartoum regime.]