SPLM seeks partners at south-south dialogue conference

By Daniel Van Oudenaren

November 11, 2008 (WASHINGTON) – Nine southern political parties participated with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) at a forum in Juba in an effort to consolidate the political landscape in southern Sudan and the diaspora before the 2009 elections.

The Southern Political Parties Dialogue formally began Saturday and ends Wednesday.

“Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) is not owned by the SPLM alone—it is composed of many parties. We all share in the great task of building the government which our people deserve,” said GOSS President Salva Kiir Mayardit at the opening of the forum.

SPLM, the ruling party of Southern Sudan, encouraged the conference following the formation of the Alliance of South Sudan Political Parties in Juba in June.

The historic predecessor to the Juba conference was the April 2005 south-south dialogue in Nairobi, which produced a covenant of southern political parties and civil society, recognizing various grievances.

SPLM also recently drew in the African National Congress party (ANC-Sudan) in a merger agreement in September, signed by ANC-Sudan President George Kongor Arop.

Following the conference in Juba this weekend, the SPLM absorbed the South Sudan Democratic Front, a recent breakaway part of the South Sudan Democratic Forum, said one spokesman from each party.

At the conference in Juba, “all the parties agreed to work under the SPLM leadership and the leadership of Salva Kiir so that they will establish the New Sudan,” said Gordon Buay, the former secretary of information of the South Sudan Democratic Front.

Buay lives in Canada but visited Washington on his return from spending more than a year in Sudan. He will travel to Sudan again in the spring to campaign on behalf of SPLM in the 2009 elections.

“I welcome Gordon Buay to the SPLM,” said Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, head of the Southern Sudan mission in Washington D.C. “He has decided he is part of the SPLM, to join the SPLM and to continue to struggle with SPLM toward the vision of SPLM to change the country. I have informed the SPLM leadership about this and they welcome the move and welcome all of the political parties in the south to come and be part of the SPLM.”

Buay explained, “last year we founded the South Sudan Democratic Front because we had problems within the South Sudan Democratic Forum. I was a member of the Forum together with Joseph Lagu,” the former rebel leader of the first Sudanese civil war who later became 2nd vice president of Sudan.

“Lagu joined the SPLM,” he said. “And then later we had a disagreement with Bona Malwal because he is not looking toward the vision of New Sudan. We left last year and formed the Front in Khartoum,” he said of his past political affiliation.

Political reconciliation within the south, particularly in areas heavily contested during the civil war, has to overcome grievances from years of fragmentation and military confrontation.
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Buay said that in his past harsh criticisms of the SPLM, “I was not targeting the SPLM vision; I was only targeting some individuals who were not advancing the vision of Dr. John Garang.”

The young politician, who comes from Upper Nile but fled to Ethiopia in 1999, said that the 1991 split in the SPLA aggravated tribal tension and was “a dark chapter in our struggle.”

But he noted, “tribal tension, as you can see right now in the leadership of the SPLM is very diverse. Most of the tribes of the south are represented.”

On this point, Salva Kiir attacked tribal forms of political organization in his speech to southern parties on Saturday: “In Southern Sudan, people often complain of tribalism. We accept that tribes are the basis of our social fabric and we must promote all our rich and diverse cultures. But tribalism is a cancer on our unity and we must do whatever possible to contain it … Let us all agree here to uphold the absolute principle of opposition to tribalism.”

Suzanne Jambo, the SPLM national secretary for external relations, said that at the conference there was a “spirit of honest constructive dialogue, openness and encouragement of one another.”

(ST)