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UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 (Reuters) The US special envoy to Sudan condemned the fresh fighting between the Sudanese army and rebels in Darfur saying the clashes made it difficult to take Sudanese pledges of peace seriously.
''This is a continued military offensive by the Sudan armed forces, part of a pattern of violence the United States condemns and others should condemn,'' US special envoy to the Sudan Richard Williamson told Reuters yesterday.
''This continued offensive really undercuts any efforts to move toward peace and it undercuts President (Omar Hassan) al-Bashir's statement last week about a ceasefire,'' he said in a telephone interview.
Sudanese President Bashir, accused of orchestrating a campaign of genocide in Darfur, last week announced an ''immediate'' and ''unconditional'' ceasefire across the remote region of western Sudan where rebel and government militia have clashed for more than five years.
Leaders of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army confirmed attacking a government army base near the settlement of Hilif in North Darfur and said the army called in an air attack on nearby villages in response.
Rebel commander Suleiman Marajan told Reuters by satellite phone in Sudan that five of his fighters were killed in the bombings. But Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, Khartoum's UN ambassador, said the army had not attacked the rebels.
''Williamson should not base his statements on hearsay,'' he told Reuters. ''The government is not retaliating. These are fantastic stories by the rebels to provoke the government into breaking the ceasefire.'' Abdalhaleem added that Khartoum remained ''fully committed to the ceasefire.'' The United Nations said on Wednesday it was investigating several earlier reports of violations of the Darfur ceasefire.
REBELS ALSO ACCUSED OF VIOLATING TRUCE Williamson said it was not only the government that was breaking the truce. He said the rebels were also undermining the credibility of their own stated commitment to peace.
The US envoy said he was heading to Doha to meet rebel representatives about a Qatar-sponsored peace initiative.
''But all that possibility (of progress on peace) disappears if statements about ceasefire are violated from both sides before the ink is dry on the promise,'' he said.
UN officials believe the Darfur conflict has killed as many as 300,000 people and left another 2.5 million homeless.
Khartoum says 10,000 people have died since fighting broke out in 2003 between the Arab-dominated Khartoum government and mostly African rebels.
Separately, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who asked The Hague-based court in July to indict Bashir for war crimes and genocide in Darfur, requested that the ICC indict unnamed rebels for attacking and killing African Union peacekeepers last year.
Williamson welcomed Moreno-Ocampo's announcement: ''I believe that for justice to be credible and for restorative justice to take place, all sides who commit crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide have to be held to account.'' The Sudanese foreign ministry said it would not hand any Sudanese citizens over to the ICC.
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