SHRO condemns presidential statements against peace agreement

May 31, 2009 — The NIF/NCP chairperson, president Omer al-Bashir stated in the ruling party’s conference today the South “is ruled by a military intelligence that exercises full-scale censor in the South against all civil activities.” The President asked the SPLM to open up the South for all political parties. The President then threatened to enforce “the same policy, eye for an eye, versus the SPLM in the North.”

The call on governments to open freedoms in the country is most welcome. SHRO-Cairo, however, is gravely concerned over the NIF/NCP presidential statements that ignored, rather than recognized, the CPA provisions for the central government to support the South ongoing efforts to end the post-war armed conflicts. SHRO is equally concerned for the negligence of the president to the national need to strengthen the situation of human rights over the country as a whole, and the urgent need to end the warring role his government continues to play in Darfur of which millions of the innocent indigenous population are still displaced in appalling conditions, especially in the aftermath of the president’s unwarranted removal of the major relief agencies from Darfur.

The Sudan Human Rights Organization – Cairo condemns in the strongest terms possible the NIF/NCP mounting hostilities against the peace agreement, which requires the central government to insure full democratic freedoms indiscriminately for all political parties and civil society groups in the North, including the freedom of the press and publications and the independent activities of civil society groups free of the State Security and Intelligence censorship. The central government is equally required by the CPA to help the South Sudan Government to sustain peace in the South. The two governments are obliged as peace partners to act in accordance with the CPA and the Interim Constitution to allow all opposition parties to participate actively in the transition to democratic rule by national elections.

The Organization believes that the remaining weeks constitutionally allowable for the NIF/NCP government and president to stay in political power should be carefully spent in close peaceful relations with the opposition and civil society groups, especially the SPLM peace partner, towards the establishment of an all-Sudanese transitional government to run the national elections in order to sustain and to apply firmly the Sudan’s most significant peace treaty, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.