SPLA rebels set up nationwide youth, women’s unions

KHARTOUM, Feb 23 (AFP) — The rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) set up nationwide youth and women’s unions on Monday to shore up a much-anticipated peace treaty after decades of civil war, the group said.

“We declare the establishment of the New Sudan Youth Union and the New Sudan Women’s Union to serve the new Sudan and to develop the capabilities and awareness of the young persons and women,” the SPLA said in a statement.

Spokesmen Yassir Arman and Ramadan Mohammed Abdullahi told a news conference here that the two unions had been set up in a bid to rebuild Sudan on “new foundations, irrespective of the ethnic, cultural or religious diversities”.

They would help young people and women participate in development and reconstruction programmes after peace, the statement added.

A peace deal being negotiated by Khartoum and southern rebels to end a 20-year civil war is due to be signed before March 11, an Arab League official said Friday.

Every Sudanese, whether a southerner or northerner, a Christian or a Muslim, is eligible to join the unions, the rebel group said.

They invited “all youth and women of the Sudan, in the north, south, east and west to join the New Sudan Women’s Union and the New Sudan Youth Union so that we can work together for building a democratic, healthy homeland”.

Provisional heads of the youth and women’s unions, Abdallah Tiah and Achai Deng, respectively, said they would rent houses in Khartoum as headquarters and would begin the process of registering members.

Although Khartoum and the southern rebels have agreed to share Sudan’s wealth, particularly oil revenues, they remain deadlocked on several key areas, including power-sharing and the future status of three disputed regions.

Sudan’s civil war erupted in 1983 between the south, where most observe traditional African religions and Christianity, and the Muslim, Arabised north.

The conflict along with war-related famine and disease have claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced an estimated four million people, mostly from the south.