Investigate Sudan’s Foreign Minister
Editorial, The Khartoum Monitor
Feb 24, 2007 — The decision by the president of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM), Lt-Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit, to form a committee to investigate the allegations aimed against Dr Lam Akol, the minister of foreign affairs and a senior SPLM member, is highly appreciated.
Dr Akol is accused of working to dismember the SPLM in Upper Nile and of being the leader and financier of the modern Southern Front. These charges against Dr Lam are very serious. Undermining a party that sent you as its representative to parliament and appointed you to head a coveted ministry such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the peak of political corruption.
The investigation committee is headed by Kosti Manibe, the minister of humanitarian affairs and senior SPLM member. The fact that all the members of the investigation committee do not come from Upper Nile region (four are from Equatoria while one is from Bahr al-Ghazal) is appropriate to ensure neutrality. Dr Lam if from the Upper Nile region. However, we have serious reservations on the need of maintaining Dr Lam in his current positions as the investigations continues.
In many countries if you are facing serious allegations such as the ones Dr Lam is facing, you are suspended so that you do not influence the course of the investigation. The office you occupy gives you some work powers and privileges which could interfere with the investigations.
Besides, Manibe is a cabinet colleague of Dr Lam. How would he feel investigating a colleague? That is putting him in an impossible position.
For the investigations to be thorough, swift and fair, Dr Lam should be suspended from all his positions. In other words he has to be removed as minister of foreign affairs, member of the National Assembly and of the Interim National Council (INC).
In fact one would have expected Dr Lam himself to resign all these posts to fight the allegations against him from outside the corridors of power. But since he has not done so the SPLM should evict him now. If he is cleared of the allegations, he can always be reinstated, without much fuss.