Darfur Crisis, a traditional tribal conflict, diplomat

The crisis of Darfur is a "traditional tribal conflict" asserted, in Rabat Monday, the Sudanese ambassador in Morocco.

Ahmed Mekki Ahmed Yahya told a press conference that a "foreign campaign aims at politicising the problem," denying that "an ethnic cleansing" took place in the country.

He argued that "all tribes of African origin are Muslims," consequently, the government "can not proceed to cleansing against its own partisans."

According to Yahya, the conflict in the west of the country is "a historic conflict between tribes living on agriculture and others on breeding."

In this period of democratic openness, he explained, some political parties have tried to guarantee the adhesion of certain tribes by supporting them against others. The result, he said, was the "exacerbation of tribal fracture."

He added that military operations have been boosted by the proliferation of arms trafficking, mainly after the end of war in Chad, on the frontiers with Sudan.

The campaign launched against Sudan "has contributed to the political exacerbation of the crisis," he pointed out.

He said, however, that the Sudanese government has recognized the existence of a humanitarian crisis in Darfur and emphasized the need to divide wealth equally.