Violation of the CPA via Nominations in Western Equatoria
Azande Worldwide Community Network
PRESS Statement August 28, 2005.
The Azande are again unhappy due to the way the recent nominations for members of assemblies for unity Government and GoSS were conducted in Western Equatoria in Yambio on Saturday 20th August 2005 under the supervision of Dr. Riak Macher.
The nomination process was designed to undermine the SPLM since most of members of the Azande SPLM were knocked off the list of nominees due to the fact that dozens of supporters and sympathizers of National Congress were air lifted from Juba and Khartoum to attend the meeting and they were the people who dominated the meeting. Azande chiefs and elders and intellectuals from Kenya or Europe were not told of the meeting. So the same members who came from Khartoum and Juba presented themselves as SPLM candidates to be put on the list and they made sure that they remove the Azande SPLM from the list and replace them with their own NC members who now claim to be SPLM.
This is a violation of the CPA in Western Equatoria and it cannot be tolerated or allowed to proceed.
On the other hand all other states in Southern Sudan had conducted their nominations amicably with only SPM members attending and without having to bring NC members from Khartoum. At any rate NC has its 15% of the cake in Southern Sudan and so why do they want to steal SPLM seats? Further for us Azande a temporary list had existed since people met for SPLM NCL in Rumbek from January 2005. That now a complete new list was made is a direct manipulation to undermine SPLM in Western Equatoria and replace it with National Congress secretly. The SPLM party should know who are their members any way and Azande had been at the heart of SPLM all these years and they cannot continue to be undermined and now to be represented by wrong elements of NC.
According to the CPA SPLM had 70 % and National Congress has 15% while other Southern parties take 15%. So replacing SPLM members secretly by National Congress members in Western Equatoria is taking us back to Square one so that we have not really achieved a genuine and honourable peace as professed by late SPLM leader Dr. John Garang. Southern Sudanese should not allow this and it is not to be tolerated as we cannot talk of peace while such games are being played in front of our eyes . This is the way the NC intends to dishonour the peace agreement and we have to watch out and take steps to achieve genuine peace . The Azande people and intellectuals in Diaspora and home are very unhappy now and are appealing to SPLM leadership to declare the nominations taken by Dr. Riak Macher as null and void. The only nomination that Azande want to stand is that for Governor where CDR Patrick Zomai was selected even prior to this current nominations. Besides the Governor’s nomination we cannot accept National Congress stealing the SPLM 70 % for their members while they had enjoyed all these years with NC in Khartoum and Juba.
Also many of these members who were flown from Khartoum and Juba went to Yambio went around telling people to support members from Diaspora and their names must be removed from any list. This clearly shows the intention of NC sympathizers to undermine SPLM which had the bulk of its intellectuals abroad. They wanted to use all threats to hijack SPLM nomination in order to dominate Western Equatoria and use it as a staging ground for their programmes. Why should SPLM not fly their Azande members from Diaspora to participate in the Nomination process while National Congress was allowed to do just that?.
We know that the SPLM is facing big logistics and nightmare organisation problems but it should not be an excuse for NC to come in. It has also been the talk in the Diaspora that SPLM members in Diaspora all are available also to go and get things organised properly for SPLM to function as a party. We want SPLM to organise itself very well in Southern Sudan to face the threats of NC trying to undermine the peace in every way as they have done here with Azande nominations. We want assure SPLM leadership that Western Equatoria will not be used as staging ground to undermine the SPM and the peace process and we will stand firm to defend the freedom of Southern Sudan and the hard won gains of the CPA.
Azande intellectuals are today writing a memo to Lt Gen Sava Kiir which will detail the way they want things done for Western Equatoria and seeking the annulment of the wrong nominations. We want assure Lt Gen Salva Kiir that we are here to work with him to promote genuine peace and we will not allow hijackers to undermine the peace process, the SPLM and the Southern Sudan.
Charles Barnaba Kisanga
Former Member, SPLM NLC
And Chairman Worldwide Zande Community Network
Bristol, UK.