SPLM must become more involved in Darfur
By Alfred Taban, The Khartoum Monitor
March 4, 2007 — When the first vice president and the president of South Sudan, Lt-Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit spoke about the failure of the government to safeguard the lives and property of the people of Darfur, and the necessity of UN intervention, he was condemned by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). They called Salva an opposition leader, not a partner. What Salva said is nothing new. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) has said very many times that it favours international involvement in the Darfur war.
What is new is the reaction of the NCP. This is part of an unwarranted pressure on the SPLM which the movement must confront and defeat. The NCP wants the SPLM to lie and tell the world that the situation in Darfur is okay. It wants to drag the SPLM into its self inflicted confrontation with the international community.
The SPLM must stand with the long suffering people of Darfur . The abject poverty which has been imposed on the people of Darfur by successive governments in Khartoum, especially the current one, must be ended by Darfurians, aided by the SPLM. The SPLM is struggling for the marginalized people of Sudan. The people of Darfur are the most marginalized after south Sudan.
The people of Darfur want peace but they also want justice. They want UN troops to come and save them following the failure of African Union (AU) forces. The AU cannot even protect itself, as shown by the Thursday attack on the house of one of its peace monitors and the stealing of his car in El-Fashir, Darfur’s biggest town. The justice the people of Darfur are seeking can only come from the UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC). The SPLM must stand firm in support of international legitimacy in Darfur and the whole Sudan.
The Sudan government is part the problem of Darfur. It is unwilling to surrender power to Darfur, unless forced to as was the case in south Sudan. The SPLM must become more involved in Darfur. It has to make the cost of continuing neglect of Darfur higher for the government in Khartoum. The SPLM should not be deceived by the government that there is a partnership. There is only cohabitation. The national Congress is a radical Islamic, pan Arab, centralist party whereas the SPLM is a mass movement, pro poor, federalist and secular in formation.
The National Congress is no longer a partner to the SPLM but a rival.