SPLA turns down partnership proposal from Sudan ruling party
KHARTOUM, Dec 9 (AFP) — The visiting delegation of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) has turned down a proposal by the ruling National Corgress Party (NCP) to establish a partnership between them during the transitional period.
“The movement will never establish such a partnership that isolates others, consolidates totalitarianism and confiscates the rights of other parties,” delegation leader Pagan Amum told a joint press conference here with Dr. Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed, head of the NCP side in the talks.
Amum said any partnership with the government should be “confined to the joint responsibility of implementing the peace agreement.”
Speaking of the talks, Ahmed said “it was not easy,” adding that the discussions were exploratory ones on issues of democracy, pluralism, unity and opinions of the two parties on the elections.
In addition to meeting with different political and civil organisations, the SPLA delegation held two rounds of talks with the ruling party that was reported to have prepared a draft agreement for political partnership that was snubbed by delegation.
Speaking at a rally organised by the opposition Umma Party at its headquarters in Omdurman, SPLA spokesman Yassir Arman Tuesday night said a dialogue only with the government “will not lead to a full-fledged peace and therefore the dialogue should include all civil society forces.”
“We have come here to declare that there is no return to war and that democratic transformation should be established,” said Arman. He added that the SPLM/A would turn into a “political movement of the masses from the extreme north to the extreme south and from the extreme east to the extreme west of the Sudan.”
Turning the SPLM/A into a national political party “is one guarantee for unifying the Sudan on new basis”, said Arman.
Following a visit he made to the Egyptian embassy earlier Tuesday, Arman underlined as important the role to be played by Egypt in rallying Arab support for rehabilitation efforts in southern Sudan.
Stressing that his organisation counts “heavily on the Egyptian role during the interim period, the SPLM/A spokesman said the relations between the movement and Egypt “have never been cool, have never been severed and have always been based on dialogue and understanding.”