Sudan’s rebels urge opposition parties to join struggle for regime change

January 1, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – A group of allied rebel forces in Sudan has called on mainstream opposition parties to join its quest to overthrow the government and establish a democratic system.

The Sudanese Revolutionary Forces (SRF), an umbrella group comprising the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N), two factions of the Darfur rebels Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), on Sunday addressed an open letter to Farouk Abu Eissa, chairman of the National Consensus Forces (NCF), a group of center-based opposition parties including the National Umma Party (NUP) and the Popular Congress Party (PCP).

In its letter, the SRF conveyed its readiness to work jointly with the NCF in order to topple the regime through combining means of armed struggle with popular uprising in the center.

SRF’s call comes across as an attempt to bridge the gap between its forces and the largely pacifist NCF.

Since its inception in late November last year, the SRF adopted the radical option of toppling the regime through armed struggle. SRF forces are fighting government forces in the regions of Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur.

Meanwhile, NCF forces have been divided over the way forward.

Whereas the NUP of former Prime Minister Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi promised to lead “responsible opposition” and criticized armed struggle, other groups, most notably the PCP of Islamist leader Hassan Al-Turabi, continue to call for a popular uprising modeled on the Arab Spring.

The SRF’s letter urged NCF forces to distance themselves from calls for dialogue with the government, the pursuit of constitutional reforms or the pretext of adopting a third way other than toppling the regime.

In an attempt to counter allegations by the government that the SRF is an ethnic alliance of the Nuba in South Kordofan and the Zagawa in Darfur, the SRF said that “the biggest ethnic institution is the Khartoum regime.”

It went on to assert that the SRF was “a democratic organization whose goals are represented in restructuring the Sudanese state and laying down the pillars of a state based on equal citizenship rights, democracy and social justice.”

The SRF called for establishing a strategic relationship between Sudan and South Sudan, saying that this particular goal cannot be achieved unless through toppling the regime and finding an alternative system that guarantees cohabitation with South Sudan and other neighboring countries.

South Sudan is accused by Khartoum of aiding SRF rebels, a charge Juba has denied.

The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) is hyper sensitive to any potential cooperation between opposition parties and the SRF. Authorities in Khartoum have recently arrested two senior PCP members upon their return from a visit to the Republic of South Sudan and Uganda, where most SRF leaders are based.

(ST)