Sudan’s Salva Kiir says SPLM is unionist party
February 15, 2008 (CAIRO) — Sudanese First Vice-President has stated that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement is a unionist party and all the Sudanese have to work for it.
According to the Coprehensive Peace Agreement signed between the Khartoum government led by the NCP and the former rebel SPLM in January 2005, a referendum will be conducted in southern Sudan in 2011 to decide whether the region will separate from Sudan to be an independent state.
During a talk show in the Egyptian Channel 1 TV, the Sudanese First Vice President, Salva Kiir Mayadrit said that the SPLM’s agenda is unity and all of us have to accept and work for unity”. Further he stressed that no one foreign country encouraged the division of Sudan.
Mayadrit asserted that the USA has never worked on dividing Sudan. “Rather, it [USA] has been always working for the unity of Sudan,” he said. “Whatever the relations we have with the Americans, the UK or any other country, they do not go for secession.”
Salva Kiir was the guest of Egyptian state TV’s “State of Discussion” weekly programme, broadcast on 13 February on Channel 1. Also participated with him in the talk show the Minister of International Cooperation, al-Tagani Salih Fidail, Luka biong, GOSS Minister of Presidential Affairs, Sayed Fulayfil professor at Cairo University, Hani Raslan chief of Sudan unit at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), Amani al-Tawil expert at ACPSS, Asma al-Husseini journalist specialized in Sudanese affairs, and Bakri Naim al-Mansur Sudanese politician and member of Sudan’s Democratic Unionist Party.
Commenting on the differences between the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan SPLM, Kiir said in English: “The differences that occurred between the National Congress Party and SPLM were a result of the implementation of the peace agreement we signed in 2005.”
“We agreed to resolve all the issues through discussion,” he said, adding that the two parties held a long meeting on how to organize the election law. He noted that the law would come out soon, demanding putting the law into effect once being passed.
“The issue of border between north and south Sudan is important. The demarcation of the border was supposed to have started in February instant. However, demarcation does not really mean that there are differences,” said Kiir.
Tackling the issue of elections, Kiir said: “The elections to be held in 2011 will not bring Sudan back to war”, adding that “we are fighting for democratic shift”.
“The war we are waging is not against Arabs, Muslims or any race. Rather, it is against injustice that denied our rights,” he said.
(ST)