SPLM, show the exemple for Justice, Freedom in Sudan
By Tahir Sati*
October 7, 2006 — Unless the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) releases all those detained by its government in prisons in southern towns, its leaders will not have the right, at federal level, to talk about freedoms, democracy, justice, the respect for the laws and other values monopolized by the New Sudan slogans, which are being used to outdo political parties of the old Sudan!!
The truth that everyone in my country needs to know is that the SPLM’s intelligence service, under the auspices of the government of the south and under the eyes and ears of the SPLM and its head, who is also the vice president of the republic, has, over a week ago, thrown a large number of official and civil leaders into prisons in Juba and Yei.
These people have been arrested without charge and have not been through any prosecutions, courts, judges nor did they have the right of pleading!!
We are not here to defend detainees without charge although it is our duty, nor are we here to condemn the government of the south even if condemnation is an individual duty. We are neither judges nor lawyers.
However, the position we are departing from today, the one of the press, is greater and more significant, since it monitors and analyses the movements of other powers and reflects ‘the movements’ of their parties so that people can distinguish from truth and fallacy, honesty and deception and slogans and intrinsic reality!
The SPLM slogans were and still remain the loudest voice in the north when the issues under debate are freedom, justice and the respect for the laws, in particular the Naivasha laws and the transitional constitution. However, this loud revolutionary voice in the north becomes raucous or more precisely choked when it heads south. In many cases, the power of the slogans turns into ‘mercilessness detention centres’ as they are today, where political opponents or those with differing ideological and political views succumb to flames and chains!!
When we see at the parliament men of stature such as Atim Garang, Yasir Arman, Ghazi Sulayman and other SPLM representatives, we greatly respect them, and show unreserved support for them when they fight under the slogans of ‘freedom for us and the others’ and ‘justice for all’ and other major obligations of political life. We are therefore saddened when we suddenly see that those obligations over here [in the north] are unfulfilled there [in the south] when their government, with their actions, default on them!!
It surprises us to the point of contempt when the SPLM’s ‘thermometer’ is only used to measure the temperature in northern states and the federal government, and is limited to these geographic and power areas. It is therefore unjust and illogical for us to fight, together with the SPLM, [all] the violations carried out by the ruling party and turn a blind eye to violations carried out by the movement itself.
It also surprises us to the extent of contempt that when the government of Khartoum summons or detains a journalist or an opposition politician, SPLM leaders make a noise in the press and TV, while they remain silent and temporarily deaf when they themselves summon and arrest tens of people.
Justice cannot be for one side alone.
* This paper was published by the Arabic language al-Sahafa and translated by the the BBC M. S. The author can be reached at [email protected]