Leaders of a Sudanese counter-insurgency unit on Wednesday dismissed accusations that their men committed abuses in Darfur. "We didn't loot. We didn't burn any villages. We didn't rape," General Abbas Abdelaziz, who heads the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), told reporters. "All the allegations against us are lies," an angry Mohammed Hamdan Dalgo, the unit's field commander, shouted.
They held the press conference a day after newspapers reported that Sudan's powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) has filed a criminal complaint against former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, who heads a major opposition party, Umma. Newspapers said NISS accused Mahdi of releasing false information about the RSF to reporters last week. NISS, which has authority over the RSF, accused Mahdi of offences, including threatening public peace.
He reportedly accused the unit of arson and other violence against civilians, and of including "non-Sudanese" in its ranks. The RSF role has also come under scrutiny by the European Union and UNAMID, the African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur. UNAMID chief Mohamed Ibn Chambas told the UN Security Council more than a month ago that the activities of the RSF were of "particular concern" as violence rose to alarming levels in Darfur this year.
"They have perpetrated attacks on communities," Chambas said. European Union ambassador Tomas Ulicny told AFP last month that "we should be concerned" about the role of the RSF. But the NISS commander countered: "It's the rebels who are destroying water resources, burning villages and committing race-based killings. "Then they try to put the blame on us," said Abdelaziz, wearing a uniform with a NISS shoulder patch.
The other leader, Dalgo, also known as Himeidti, appeared in plain clothes protected by a guard wearing a pistol on his hip. An analyst, Magdi El Gizouli, has described the RSF as "almost like a mercenary army" run by Dalgo. The "charismatic" Dalgo led a brief rebellion with several thousand of his men in late 2007 when he commanded a battalion of Border Guards, according to a 2010 report by the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based independent research project.
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