SUDAN PEOPLE’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT- DEMOCRATIC CHANGE
Press Statement
Date: 12 June 2009
The SPLM leadership held a press conference on Wednesday the 10th of June 2009 in a futile attempt to respond to the statement on the launching of the public activities of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – Democratic Change (SPLM – DC) and distributed a press statement on the subject. The thing that characterizes that press conference is the state of panic and confusion that afflicted that leadership after the announcement of the birth of SPLM–DC. Before a day could pass from the holding of the conference, the Minister of Legal Affairs in the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) refuted in a radio broadcast the statement made by the SPLM Spokesman challenging President Bashir to form an investigation committee on corruption claims. The Minister rejected that categorically. The Spokesman also denied that they had received the 7.3 billion dollars of oil revenue whereas the press statement was conspicuously silent on the matter. For that reason we shall ignore the statements of the “Official Spokesman” and concentrate on the written press statement.
The bulk of the statement is a pack of untruths and distortion of facts directed toward character assassination and to detract attention from the real issues raised in our statement. We need not respond to such detraction as history is recorded and available to all.
The claim that Dr. Lam Akol joined the SPLM in1986 is obviously not true and it is meant to belittle the role he played in the establishment of the Movement. It is a well known fact that Dr. Lam Akol was the one who recruited into the ranks of the SPLM many of its present leaders (James Wani Igga , Malik Agar , the late Yousif Kowa , Abdel Aziz Adam El Hilou , Telephone Kuku and many more). These persons joined the SPLM in 1984. How come that the person who recruited them joined later than that? Please, respect the intelligence of others.
The Nasir Declaration has been a subject of distortion throughout the history of the SPLM. It was described as an uncalled for rebellion and as a tribal one in reference to its leaders (Dr. Riek Machar and Dr. Lam Akol). The question that poses itself is: what is the basis of their evaluation? Is it on the programme or on that any national work must be led by a particular tribe? The facts of history record that what happened in Nasir was a major corrective step to the struggle waged by the Movement on its position regarding self-determination to the people of southern Sudan which later became the core of all agreements signed between political parties and between them and the government (Asmara Declaration, Khartoum and Fashoda Peace Agreements, The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, etc.). Hence, it must be clear to those who would like to assassinate the character of Dr. Lam Akol that he is one of those revolutionaries who contributed to the corrective move.
Any attempts to denigrate the Khartoum and Fashoda Peace Agreements are doomed to fail. Suffice it to mention that these agreements marked a political experiment that resolved most of the outstanding differences and it were those two agreements that were reverted to durin the Naivasha Peace Talks to resolve those issues, especially self-determination.
The statement alleged that Dr. Lam Akol formed a students organization parallel to that of the SPLM students. The truth is that there never was any students’ organization affiliated to the SPLM before the signing of the CPA. There was an organization called the African Nationalists Front (ANF) formed in the University of Khartoum in the seventies of the last century which some claimed to belong to the SPLM but it was also claimed by at least one other political party. That the ANF joined the SPLM in 2007 is another matter known to its leadership.
The students’ organization referred to was established in 2001, that is, well before the signing of the CPA.
The SPLM leadership accuses Dr. Lam Akol that “His tenure as Minister for Foreign Affairs constrained the partnership between the NCP and SPLM and between Sudan and the international community “. True, the relationship was constrained but that was due to the vascillation of the SPLM leadership on major issues. For instance, their claim in the statement that “the SPLM is also on record of welcoming the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces in Darfur“ is a distortion of facts easy to expose. In the National Assembly sitting of 22 February 2006, both the SPLM’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Chairman of the SPLM Caucus in the Assembly who is also the Chairman of the Northern Sector appeared on TV screens calling for the rejection of deployment of UN troops in Darfur. This position was dictated on them through directives from the SPLM leadership when the Presidency agreed unanimously the day before, 21 February 2006, to reject the deployment of UN troops in Darfur. The sittings of the National Assembly are not only televised, they are also recorded and the deliberations transcribed into a Hansard. Anybody can check these facts there. What the statement calls the original position of the movement does not tally with the well documented facts above. It was a change of position we know who dictated it on them.
The statement goes on to turn facts upside down when it accused Dr. Lam Akol of being “in desperate search for power“. If that were to be the case, he could not have turned down the position of Minister of Information and Culture in the transitional government in 1985 representing the Khartoum University Teachers Union (KUTU), and other positions well known to the authors of the statement.
The statement has totally failed to give answers to the points raised in our statement of 6 June 2009 and implicitly admitted receiving the 7.3 billion US dollars of oil revenue, but tried to give generalized and unconvincing excuses such as that the South was totally destroyed as a result of the war. However, the condition of the South after the signing of the CPA was far better than its condition when the Addis Ababa Agreement was signed in 1972. For example, the government’s buildings in Juba were built from scratch in six months in the seventies whereas the maintenance of the same buildings under the present government took more than two years!! The achievements the statement boasts about are nowhere to be seen on the ground. Even if they were to be there they are insignificant compared to the huge amounts of money spent.
On corruption, the writers of the statement should tell us how many of those involved in corruption stood trials and how many of them were convicted? It is self-defeating for the leadership of the SPLM to justify their corruption by comparing it with what is going on in the Government of National Unity; as if the SPLM is telling us that its corruption is acceptable since it is less in magnitude than the corruption of others. If the SPLM is engaged in corruption in the same way the Old Sudan is, what is its moral justification for taking up arms against the Old Sudan in the first place?
The attempt of the statement to give excuses for the deterioration in the security situation in the South does not hold water, and we do not need to add more to what we mentioned in our statement.
It is ludicrous and ridiculous for the authors of the statement to claim that “there is full freedom of political activities by all political parties in southern Sudan, including holding of political rallies, party conventions and mobilization campaigns“. Who does not know that the political parties including its partner, the National Congress, are not allowed by the SPLM to practise political work in the South? How many politicians were prevented from holding political rallies including members of the SPLM the leadership do not approve of? What about the Security interferences in the conventions held by Southern political parties in juba ? Why is it that the Human Rights Commission is the only commission not formed in the South up to now? And a host of other questions. You will hoodwink nobody.
If they are serious about providing political freedoms in the South, we propose to them that a committee be formed comprising all the political parties to visit the South and monitor the holding of political rallies by the parties. Nobody will believe them if they do not accept this proposal and implement it on the ground.
How can the SPLM be ”among the parties that are intensifying the pressure at the National Assembly to repeal laws that restrict freedom “ when it dose not allow these freedoms to be exercised in South Sudan where it controls power? The leadership of the SPLM ought to be consistent with itself and not bury its head in the sand on a sensitive and central issue such as the guarantee of freedoms.
The statement continues to profusely chant empty slogans on the achievement of the New Sudan forgetting that it was given the full opportunity to implement its vision in southern Sudan which has been under its administration for four full years. What did it achieve? A party that has been ruling this long cannot continue to be sloganeering and giving empty promises. Our people are asking: what did you achieve during your rule in the South all this time?
The leadership of the SPLM must prove to the Sudanese people in general and the Southerners in particular its tall audacious claim that “we have indeed taken Sudan from the clutches of the Old Sudan to the doorsteps of New Sudan“. Are they talking about a Sudan in Mars or about the Sudan we are in? If the miserable situation in the South now is the promised New Sudan, then those who prefer the Old Sudan are justified to hold such a position.
The assertion that the departure of Dr. Lam Akol “will absolutely have no effects on the SPLM “ does not deserve comment from us apart from saying that time is our best judge on that. It is a familiar statement we have heard before in the nineties of the last century. Our question is: why all this noise and panic if the whole thing is without effect?
A leadership that lacks self – confidence will always blame others for its failures, imagines itself surrounded by enemies from all directions and will never go beyond “ suspicion and nagging “ . In such a state of mind, it can never achieve let alone being “capable of delivering freedom, peace and prosperity to all Sudanese people“ as the statement unashamedly asserts. Wonders never cease!
If you come again, we shall.
The Information Department , SPLM–DC 12 June 2009.
حركة العدل و المساواة السودانية
موقع متخصص بنقل آخر الأخبار و البيانات و القرارات لحركة العدل و المساواة السودانية