SPLM takes long awaited step to salvage CPA
By Mariar Wuoi
October 13, 2007 — After the meeting of Sudan’s People Liberation Movement’s (SPLM) Interim Political Bureau (IPB), the Movement’s top brass decided to temporarily cease its participation in the Government of National Unity (GoNU) until outstanding issues related to the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement have been resolved. Many southerners have waited for something to be done about National Congress Party’s intransigence with respect to CPA’s implementation. Although SPLM’s current move is temporary, the NCP must be holding some crisis meeting because this is the first step towards something big: collapse of the CPA and resumption of armed struggle. The timing of this decision couldn’t have been better because the international community is currently getting ready to start peace negotiation on Darfur. The CPA is considered the roadmap for any future attempts aimed at pacifying Darfur and its collapse will be considered a sign that Khartoum cannot be trusted. The SPLM has made it clear that it is not interested in taking the CPA down this unhealthy path, the NCP is clearly not doing much to help the situation. It is therefore imperative that all options must be on table. Strategically, the NCP is not in a position to wage two wars at the same time. It has failed to win in Darfur and should not have any illusions that it can in the South. Twenty plus years of civil war proved that beyond any shadow of doubt.
The SPLM must take incremental steps to push the NCP towards implementing the CPA. This particular agreement did not come about as a result of our inability to continue the liberation struggle. It was born out of realization that neither side was winning the war militarily. If any, it was in NCP’s best interest to bring the war to a peaceful conclusion, because Sudanese history has shown that any government of the day is bound to be overthrown either by popular uprising or army if the war continues in the South. Now that the SPLM has joined the government and guns are silent in the South, the NCP feels safe enough to miscalculate the consequences of its failure to abide by what it signed. This is likely to lead us to Third civil war.
Today, the Movement has shown that it is not going to sit by while the NCP flush the CPA down the toilet. The next step must be measured and concrete enough to catch the international community’s attention: an ultimatum must be issued to remaining Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) in the South that they must be moved north of 1956 border or the SPLA will be forced to consider these troops as occupation troop that require offensive measures. Failure by the SAF to withdraw these troops will result in violation of ceasefire protocol, thereby rendering it null and void. Within a specified duration, the North-South border will then be closed and militarized. This means no traffic between the North and its troops in the South and any attempt to supply them will be confronted. The SPLA will then be instructed to curtail the ability of these troops to move about in the South. After the expiry of set timetable for full and verifiable withdrawal of these troops, the SPLA will be at leisure to initiate offensive measures. Even before we reach this step, the NCP will have understood that the SPLM means business and it will be forced to act.
For now at least, the SPLM must do some house cleaning in the South because we have been infiltrated by the Sudanese intelligence. I would not be surprised if the items on the IPB meeting agenda were known in the north well before we did. This does not mean that we should be paranoid and start mass detention; we just need to be overzealous and step up counterintelligence in the South. The way the NCP has reacted to SPLM’s decision indicates that it knew this decision was coming long before the SPLM announced it. It probably erroneously believes that this is a ‘bluff’ of some sort. For as long as we have resisted the North, it has found it reliable to use ‘a slave to beat a slave’. This involves luring prominent Southerners with bribes and blackmail to do their dirty deeds. It is a common knowledge that there are people currently on the Sudan’s intelligence payroll tasked with destroying the SPLM from inside out. This is the ‘faction’ within SPLM that the north considers friendly to NCP. The early we cut out these cancerous individuals the better. The author does not mean torturing these individuals into confessing but it is worth considering if it will help.
Currently, a number of groups and individuals are working overtime to take over the SPLM and turn it into a third appendage for NCP. This process has begun in earnest and recent media release by tribal parties like SSDF is a case in point. SSDF lacks a clear strategy to the point that in its recent press release, it endorsed the current minister of state for presidential affairs, Telar Deng for the post of SPLM SG. This ill-devised plot was an attempt to sow discord among the ranks and file of the SPLM. These groups are run by individuals on Khartoum’s payroll to cry like wolves about their perceived Dinka hegemony. They are tearing the South along tribal lines so that they can let Khartoum win. SPLM is the only party with true interests of the South at heart and must continue to be our sole vehicle towards self determination.
Back to the SPLM’s decision to suspend its activities in the GoNU, we must marshal the Southern mass and prepare them for any eventuality. The people of South are anxious and eager to know what is happening. It is also the time to assess areas of strengths and weaknesses and prepare accordingly. While the SPLA remains largely an infantry-based force, it needs to be prepared to face threats of the 21st century. As the author discussed in another paper, the SPLA must concentrate its defensive efforts on being able to neutralize the SAF attack helicopters that are likely to wreak havoc on SPLA. Any wider strategy must involve reigniting and cultivating relations with rebel groups in Darfur because they remain our best strategic partners in winning any future war.
On the political front, the NCP has reacted by categorizing SPLM decision to suspend its participation the GoNU as factional infighting. This is clearly a wider conspiracy to label the SPLM as riddled by factionalism and therefore its decision should not be taken seriously. It shows the NCP has already partially taken over the SPLM from inside out or at least it’s in the process of doing so. The core SPLM members need to consolidate their hold on party structures before the NCP-affiliated faction do so. For now, the Movement must not succumb to the international pressure because the international community failed to heed numerous warnings that the CPA was not being implemented and in fact, the NCP wants to renegotiate the document in Khartoum. The international community should have acted well before the SPLM reached its decision. There is still opportunity to convince the NCP to behave. The blame thus rest on the shoulders of hardliners within the NCP, and to some extent the international community. Not SPLM.
*The author is based in the USA. he can be reached at [email protected]