SPLM Lakes secretariat request NCP to suspend MP

By Manyang Mayom

December 3, 2008 (RUMBEK) — The Lakes state secretariat of the Sudan’s People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) issued a letter requesting that the National Congress Party (NCP) suspend its most powerful member in Lakes state parliament, Agum Jacob.

SPLM addressed a letter to the NCP secretary in Lakes state, citing three articles of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005, which a NCP politician dismissed as wrongly quoted.

The SPLM Lakes state secretariat’s Acting Secretary Malou Moses Majok quoted article 2.6 of Machakos protocol which states, “the parties shall refrain from any form of unilateral revocation or abrogation of the peace agreement.”

Majok also cited CPA article 10.1.5, which says that “hostile acts that may provoke confrontation” constitute a violation of the CPA.

He thirdly cited article 10.1.8 which says, “Espionage, sabotage and acts of subversion to undermine either party and/or the Agreement” constitute a violation of the CPA.

Majok made his remarks in the context of recent confrontations in the Lakes state legislative Assembly, in which Agum Jacob “took the unusual step of physically assaulting MP Bullen Kot of the SPLM in the assembly hall.”

Malou concluded in his letter that “we are therefore calling upon NCP party leadership to suspend honorable Agum Jacob from Lakes state Legislative Assembly.”

Last week, the SPLM Lakes state secretariat office suspended the party membership of Lakes State Speaker Isaiah Alier Mashinkok in the aftermath of a power struggle in which a coalition of executives and 23 MPs deposed the Speaker in August. Thereafter, Mashinkok was reinstated by the Government of Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit after Bullen served as Speaker for 13 days.

However, the Commissioner of Rumbek Central County Abraham Makoi Bol met on Wednesday with SPLM Rumbek Central County Secretary Abraham Mayen Kuc to discuss common ground of the Rumbek central community’s position on the Assembly crisis.

They also discussed the SPLM preparation for the forthcoming general elections that are expected to be held in 2009, and the dissemination of information about election laws on the grassroots level.

Makoi said, “We are very worried about the assembly crisis.” He appealed to the SPLM party to call upon the SPLM cadres members in Lakes state legislature to discuss the matter of political crackdown before the approaching election.

On November 25, the Lakes state anti-speaker group interrupted the swearing-in ceremony of the three NCP members who were replacing their three outgoing colleagues in Lakes parliament. Yet the SPLM Lakes state secretariat office defended the move, saying that SPLM party is trying first to unite the assembly before swearing in the NCP members.

The SPLM was originally the political wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, an insurgency that waged war for 22 years against the Khartoum-based government of Sudan, before joining the national government in a 2005 peace deal that also made SPLM the ruling party in Southern Sudan.

(ST)