Former SSDF figure condemns Dechand’s criticism for SPLM over ICC
February 15, 2009 (WASHINGTON) – A former leader of the South Sudan Democratic Front (SSDF), Gordon Buay, condemned his ex-ally David Dechand after an interview in which Dechand strongly criticized the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
In statements made to Al-Intibaha newspaper this month, Dechand had sought to depict SPLM as undemocratic, negligent, dictatorial, meddlesome in Darfur and unsupportive of the national government as the Sudanese president faces war crimes charges from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
Particularly, Dechand had criticized SPLM for being equivocal on the issue of the ICC indictment against President Omer Al-Bashir, despite the fact that SPLM Chairman Salva Kiir Mayardit is formally tasked with handling the ICC issue in his capacity as First Vice President of Sudan.
Dechand stated, “on our part we made it clear that the ICC case would neither be in the interest of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) nor would it contribute to resolving the Darfur crisis.”
By contrast, Gordon Buay, the former Secretary General of SSDF, a party which he and Dechand formed in Khartoum in September 2007, said by phone from Canada that he seriously condemns Dechand, adding that Al-Bashir should surrender himself to the ICC or take up asylum with a friendly Arab country.
Further, Buay alleged that Dechand was inciting tribal hatred in the South, adding “Dechand will himself be investigated as one of the architects of the Bor massacre and also the fighting against the Dinka” — a reference to a bloody attack on Bor in 1991 that took place following a rift within the southern insurgency in the midst of the North-South civil war.
Dechand, a US citizen and one of the first Sudanese immigrants to the United States who arrived in the 1970s, had also downplayed the significance of an SPLM-led South-South dialogue conference that took place in Juba last November. According to Dechand, the conference was convened less because SPLM desires to unify southerners and more because the US administration constantly insists on consolidation of the South’s political parties.
Responding to these arguments, Buay pointed out that Dechand should not insult the US government when he is a citizen of that country, and also noted that Dechand was a signatory to the resolutions of the South-South dialogue conference.
Buay joined SPLM last November. He now serves as a legal advisor to Leac, a company closely affiliated with a former southern militia leader, Paulino Matip, who now is the deputy commander-in-chief of the SPLA.
(ST)