Sudan JEM rebels reshuffle to include new groups
Sat Apr 25, 2009 KHARTOUM (Reuters) - excerpt:
A major Darfur rebel group said on Friday it has reshuffled some of its top political and military positions to include a number of smaller groups that had joined it in the last few months.
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) member Suleiman Sandal said almost 50 percent of the executive posts had gone to newly joined members.
"We have issued these decrees because there are about 15 groups that have joined JEM since January, which means that JEM has to absorb all these groups," he told Reuters via satellite phone from Darfur, in western Sudan.
"There have been big and wide changes in the military and political leaderships as well as in the advisers," he said.
Earlier this month Sandal said 22 political and military leaders from a rival faction had joined JEM's ranks, but a leader of the faction denied any senior figures had defected and said it was just a small number of minor defections.
Veteran rebel Suleiman Jamous, who earlier this month had left the SLA-Unity faction and joined JEM, was appointed Secretary of Humanitarian Affairs. Another rebel, Mansour Younis, was appointed Secretary of Presidential Affairs.
Sandal himself, a senior commander, has been reassigned as Secretary of Security and Intelligence.
JEM was the only Darfur rebel group invited to February's peace talks with the Sudanese government in Doha, but has said it will not attend more talks until expelled aid groups are allowed to return to Darfur and prisoners are freed. [...].
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