SPLM calls upon UN Security Council to meet on Sudan peace crisis
October 22, 2007 (JUBA, Sudan) — Sudan’s former rebels called on the United Nations on Monday to hold an emergency meeting to resolve the political standoff which threatens the fragile peace deal in Africa’s largest country.
Despite crisis talks at the highest level last week, no progress was made and the northern architect of the agreement, Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, on Sunday surprised the SPLM by publicly accusing them of stalling the deal.
“We call on the United Nations to organize an urgent meeting in the Security Council to review the (agreement) and for the parties to report on the implementation,” SPLM Secretary-General Pagan Amum told reporters in the south Sudan capital Juba.
“This is the way out — we want national, regional and international efforts to converge so that the (deal) is implemented.”
Pagan was talking in a press conference held in the southern Sudan parliament Juba after a speech by the head of the SPLM to the press where he reiterated demands for the implementation of the CPA.
The north-south war claimed 2 million lives and drove 4 million from their homes. Complicated by oil ethnicity, religion and ideology, it raged on and off for five decades.
But almost three years since the landmark deal, the partners in peace reached stalemate over issues including redeployment of northern troops from southern oil fields, the status of the oil-rich Abyei region and transparency in Sudan’s oil sector, producing 500,000 barrels per day of crude.
A day after Taha criticised the southerners he negotiated the peace deal with, SPLM Chairman and First Vice President Salva Kiir flew dozens of journalists from Khartoum, Uganda and Kenya to Juba to hear him present a message to Khartoum and the Sudanese people.
“I call on President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir and the leadership of (his) National Congress Party to exercise responsibility and wisdom in managing this crisis so that we ensure the building of peace and stability,” Kiir told a hall full of journalists, diplomats, U.N. officials and regional ministers.
He tried to reassure Sudan’s people there would be no return to war. But Amum said the SPLM would mobilize people to support peace if the NCP refused to implement the deal.
“The most important step we will be taking is to mobilize the Sudanese people,” he said. “The Sudanese people have got the capacity to force whomever does not want to respect peace out.”
Last week, thousands of Sudanese demonstrated in southern towns to support the SPLM move.
Amum said Kiir handed Bashir a list of specific approaches to implement the outstanding elements of the deal and the SPLM were waiting for a reply ahead of renewed talks.
“We are positive. The SPLM wants to remain on course on the core issues,” he said.
The international community has expressed concern at the crisis, which threatens to tear Sudan apart. But so far it has remained largely quiet on the issue hoping the two parties could work through the problems through dialogue and avert disaster.
(Reuters/ST)
Bob Tata
SPLM calls upon UN Security Council to meet on Sudan peace crisis
This week, People of Sudan have eye witnessed the second vice president of Sudan Mr Ali giving a press conference on Sudan national television! All including myself were listening to his speech with full attention! Why? because people wanted to know exactly what provoked the sudden withdrawal of SPLA/M from the government of national unity (GoUN).
Thus, majority of Sudanese people (including myself) were interested to listen to Mr Ali’s speech as they want to make sense of SPLA/M finger pointing to National Congress Party (NCP) that the later is violating the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) by not implementing certain issues such as reshuffle of Dr Lam’s post(dealt with), Abeyi standoff, demarcation of South-North boundaries, and lack of transference concerning how many barrels of oils are sold-out daily by GoUN(that should have included SPLA/M) and so on!
According to me (in my opinion),Mr Ali seemed to be more trustworthy than his counterpart the SPLA/M! Why? because he didn’t not just defend his government by denial of SPLA/ M allegations but also managed to reveal some SPLA/M weaknesses concerning various matters such as the fraudulent manner with which the SPLA/M-dominated GoSS is handling the public money in South Sudan, hindrance or suppression of liberty of people of south Sudan by SPLA/M and so on!
Mr Ali asked a very important question about what SPLA/M has delivered to people of South Sudan to this moment, he indirectly accused SPLA/M of corruption when he confirmed that there is a monthly report/review about how much money the SPLA/M-led GoSS is receiving as its divide out of the oil revenue! Mr Ali also mentioned the hundreds of millions of dollars that the GoUN gave to GoSS to support what he called vital public developmental projects such improvement of health, roads building in South Sudan (including Juba the capital of GoSS)and educations!! those projects are supposed to be the priority of GoSS I am sure many people will agree with me!
However, it is not fair for one to verdict SPLA/M as blameworthy before one listen to its part of the story! Thus, for the SPLA/M to be considered honest and trustworthy it must come on National Television to tell the world about its part of the story so as to disprove NCP and everyone else’s speculations that SPLA/M withdrawal was meant to evade the accusation that the party is corrupting the public money and that it suppresses and restricts the freedom of speech for the vast majority of people of South Sudan! Failure of SPLA/M to speak out will mean approval of those allegations!
Bol Thourmuck of Greater Nasir (UK)
Ocholamero Bure Loroto
Hurra!!
Your excellency, the president of South Sudan and the associates; I am sure every body who is following is extremely happy for your non stop struggles. Sudan’s history of war is so remarkable worldwide. This is the time for an absolute U-Turn where we should flavourish in the promotion of peace and diplomatics actions all the time. This is the time for sudan to lead in the implementation of peace, time to show maturity, time to stop too much/long finger pointing at each other. Let’s take enough time to dig and find out root causes of major issues and workout solutions to combat them instead of playing the political games. Let the CPA’s aims/objectives and overal goals be on display within our hearts, within our country and to the outsiders. Let the desire of going back to war jump through windows and the desire/wisdom of “DIPLOMATIC ACTIONS COME THROUGH OUR DOORS!” Long live CPA! Long Live CPA!! By Ocholamero Loroto.