Sudan’s SPLM, NCP clash over security laws
Feb 2, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s former foes clashed on Thursday in their first diplomatic showdown since last year’s peace deal over powers for security forces, who the U.N. human rights chief says operate in a “climate of impunity”.
The peace accord ended Africa’s longest civil war in southern Sudan and a coalition government was formed. But many southerners complain the north has been reluctant to implement the deal, especially in sharing out the nation’s oil wealth.
The former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) threatened to take its northern partners to the constitutional court if they forced controversial presidential decrees, known as provisional orders, through parliament without consultation.
“Those provisional orders are violating the constitution and the peace agreement,” Yasir Arman, the head of the SPLM’s parliamentary bloc, told a news conference.
He said if no solution was reached the SPLM would vote against all the presidential decrees, issued before the coalition government was formed, and would take the matter to the constitutional court.
The laws include an armed forces act which allows any policeman to open fire at his own discretion and provides criminal immunity to officers in the armed forces when dealing with citizens, SPLM lawyer Ghazi Suleiman said.
U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour urged Sudan last week to lift all immunity laws and said the security forces had unchecked and abusive powers.
Sudan was snubbed last month by its peers, who refused to allow President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to assume the helm of the African Union because of its human rights abuses in the western Darfur region.
“BAD LAWS”
Sudan’s southern civil war claimed 2 million lives and forced more than 4 million from their homes. The 2005 peace deal does not cover the separate violence in Darfur, which the United States has branded genocide, a charge Khartoum denies.
The decrees also include a law governing the work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Sudan, which would require them to put funds into bank accounts run by the government and allowed authorities to eject any NGO which publicly disagreed with government policy.
“These are just bad laws,” said Suleiman. Under the deal the northern ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has 52 percent of government and the 450-seat legislative. The SPLM has 28 percent.
Presidential decrees cannot be amended by parliament and need only a 50 percent majority to pass. But Suleiman said the NCP could not use their majority to force the laws through.
“If so, the peace agreement would collapse,” he said. “This is not a majority-minority government, it is a marriage and it needs partners,” he added.
Suleiman said if the NCP forced through the laws, the SPLM would seek help from the international community and even the U.N. Security Council.
(Reuters)