Sudan’s NCP regrets raid against SPLM offices in Khartoum

September 16, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — The National Congress Party (NCP) has regretted police raid that targeted three SPLM offices in the Sudanese capital on 11 September during campaigns to find and confiscated unlicensed weapons.

Presidential assistant and the deputy chairman of the ruling National Congress, Nafi Ali Nafi, has regretted the raid against its peace partner during a meeting for the joint NCP SPLM political committee on Saturday 15 September.

He told the SPLM delegation that what had happened was regrettable. “It is unjustified and incorrect action” Nafi said.

Yassir Arman, deputy secretary general of the SPLM, hailed the move. He said regret and criticism of the police raid against the SPLM premises by the NCP is a “good and courageous position.”

Last Tuesday, SPLM said that heavily armed police and security forces, backed by armored personnel carriers, stormed their offices in Khartoum North, Dem, and Mogran, vandalising property, and in one case, breaking down a door.

The raid came just three days after rumors about the death of Salva Kiir, the leader of the SPLM and president of the semi-autonomous government, which created tensions in Khartoum that only eased after Kiir appeared on state television to dispel the reports.

The SPLM signed a peace agreement with the National Congress Party (NCP) in 2005, ending more than two decades of north-south conflict that left some two million people dead and forced four million to flee from their homes.

(ST)