Press Statement on SPLM’s accusations and petition against SPLM-DC
Press Statement
Date: 12 June 2009
The SPLM leadership held a press conference on Wednesday the 10th of June 2009 in a futile attempt to respond to the statement on the launching of the public activities of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – Democratic Change (SPLM – DC) and distributed a press statement on the subject. The thing that characterizes that press conference is the state of panic and confusion that afflicted that leadership after the announcement of the birth of SPLM–DC. Before a day could pass from the holding of the conference, the Minister of Legal Affairs in the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) refuted in a radio broadcast the statement made by the SPLM Spokesman challenging President Bashir to form an investigation committee on corruption claims. The Minister rejected that categorically. The Spokesman also denied that they had received the 7.3 billion dollars of oil revenue whereas the press statement was conspicuously silent on the matter. For that reason we shall ignore the statements of the “Official Spokesman” and concentrate on the written press statement.
The bulk of the statement is a pack of untruths and distortion of facts directed toward character assassination and to detract attention from the real issues raised in our statement. We need not respond to such detraction as history is recorded and available to all.
The claim that Dr. Lam Akol joined the SPLM in1986 is obviously not true and it is meant to belittle the role he played in the establishment of the Movement. It is a well known fact that Dr. Lam Akol was the one who recruited into the ranks of the SPLM many of its present leaders (James Wani Igga , Malik Agar , the late Yousif Kowa , Abdel Aziz Adam El Hilou , Telephone Kuku and many more). These persons joined the SPLM in 1984. How come that the person who recruited them joined later than that? Please, respect the intelligence of others.
The Nasir Declaration has been a subject of distortion throughout the history of the SPLM. It was described as an uncalled for rebellion and as a tribal one in reference to its leaders (Dr. Riek Machar and Dr. Lam Akol). The question that poses itself is: what is the basis of their evaluation? Is it on the programme or on that any national work must be led by a particular tribe? The facts of history record that what happened in Nasir was a major corrective step to the struggle waged by the Movement on its position regarding self-determination to the people of southern Sudan which later became the core of all agreements signed between political parties and between them and the government (Asmara Declaration, Khartoum and Fashoda Peace Agreements, The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, etc.). Hence, it must be clear to those who would like to assassinate the character of Dr. Lam Akol that he is one of those revolutionaries who contributed to the corrective move.
Any attempts to denigrate the Khartoum and Fashoda Peace Agreements are doomed to fail. Suffice it to mention that these agreements marked a political experiment that resolved most of the outstanding differences and it were those two agreements that were reverted to durin the Naivasha Peace Talks to resolve those issues, especially self-determination.
The statement alleged that Dr. Lam Akol formed a students organization parallel to that of the SPLM students. The truth is that there never was any students’ organization affiliated to the SPLM before the signing of the CPA. There was an organization called the African Nationalists Front (ANF) formed in the University of Khartoum in the seventies of the last century which some claimed to belong to the SPLM but it was also claimed by at least one other political party. That the ANF joined the SPLM in 2007 is another matter known to its leadership.
The students’ organization referred to was established in 2001, that is, well before the signing of the CPA.
The SPLM leadership accuses Dr. Lam Akol that “His tenure as Minister for Foreign Affairs constrained the partnership between the NCP and SPLM and between Sudan and the international community “. True, the relationship was constrained but that was due to the vascillation of the SPLM leadership on major issues. For instance, their claim in the statement that “the SPLM is also on record of welcoming the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces in Darfur“ is a distortion of facts easy to expose. In the National Assembly sitting of 22 February 2006, both the SPLM’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Chairman of the SPLM Caucus in the Assembly who is also the Chairman of the Northern Sector appeared on TV screens calling for the rejection of deployment of UN troops in Darfur. This position was dictated on them through directives from the SPLM leadership when the Presidency agreed unanimously the day before, 21 February 2006, to reject the deployment of UN troops in Darfur. The sittings of the National Assembly are not only televised, they are also recorded and the deliberations transcribed into a Hansard. Anybody can check these facts there. What the statement calls the original position of the movement does not tally with the well documented facts above. It was a change of position we know who dictated it on them.
The statement goes on to turn facts upside down when it accused Dr. Lam Akol of being “in desperate search for power“. If that were to be the case, he could not have turned down the position of Minister of Information and Culture in the transitional government in 1985 representing the Khartoum University Teachers Union (KUTU), and other positions well known to the authors of the statement.
The statement has totally failed to give answers to the points raised in our statement of 6 June 2009 and implicitly admitted receiving the 7.3 billion US dollars of oil revenue, but tried to give generalized and unconvincing excuses such as that the South was totally destroyed as a result of the war. However, the condition of the South after the signing of the CPA was far better than its condition when the Addis Ababa Agreement was signed in 1972. For example, the government’s buildings in Juba were built from scratch in six months in the seventies whereas the maintenance of the same buildings under the present government took more than two years!! The achievements the statement boasts about are nowhere to be seen on the ground. Even if they were to be there they are insignificant compared to the huge amounts of money spent.
On corruption, the writers of the statement should tell us how many of those involved in corruption stood trials and how many of them were convicted? It is self-defeating for the leadership of the SPLM to justify their corruption by comparing it with what is going on in the Government of National Unity; as if the SPLM is telling us that its corruption is acceptable since it is less in magnitude than the corruption of others. If the SPLM is engaged in corruption in the same way the Old Sudan is, what is its moral justification for taking up arms against the Old Sudan in the first place?
The attempt of the statement to give excuses for the deterioration in the security situation in the South does not hold water, and we do not need to add more to what we mentioned in our statement.
It is ludicrous and ridiculous for the authors of the statement to claim that “there is full freedom of political activities by all political parties in southern Sudan, including holding of political rallies, party conventions and mobilization campaigns“. Who does not know that the political parties including its partner, the National Congress, are not allowed by the SPLM to practise political work in the South? How many politicians were prevented from holding political rallies including members of the SPLM the leadership do not approve of? What about the Security interferences in the conventions held by Southern political parties in juba ? Why is it that the Human Rights Commission is the only commission not formed in the South up to now? And a host of other questions. You will hoodwink nobody.
If they are serious about providing political freedoms in the South, we propose to them that a committee be formed comprising all the political parties to visit the South and monitor the holding of political rallies by the parties. Nobody will believe them if they do not accept this proposal and implement it on the ground.
How can the SPLM be ”among the parties that are intensifying the pressure at the National Assembly to repeal laws that restrict freedom “ when it dose not allow these freedoms to be exercised in South Sudan where it controls power? The leadership of the SPLM ought to be consistent with itself and not bury its head in the sand on a sensitive and central issue such as the guarantee of freedoms.
The statement continues to profusely chant empty slogans on the achievement of the New Sudan forgetting that it was given the full opportunity to implement its vision in southern Sudan which has been under its administration for four full years. What did it achieve? A party that has been ruling this long cannot continue to be sloganeering and giving empty promises. Our people are asking: what did you achieve during your rule in the South all this time?
The leadership of the SPLM must prove to the Sudanese people in general and the Southerners in particular its tall audacious claim that “we have indeed taken Sudan from the clutches of the Old Sudan to the doorsteps of New Sudan“. Are they talking about a Sudan in Mars or about the Sudan we are in? If the miserable situation in the South now is the promised New Sudan, then those who prefer the Old Sudan are justified to hold such a position.
The assertion that the departure of Dr. Lam Akol “will absolutely have no effects on the SPLM “ does not deserve comment from us apart from saying that time is our best judge on that. It is a familiar statement we have heard before in the nineties of the last century. Our question is: why all this noise and panic if the whole thing is without effect?
A leadership that lacks self – confidence will always blame others for its failures, imagines itself surrounded by enemies from all directions and will never go beyond “ suspicion and nagging “ . In such a state of mind, it can never achieve let alone being “capable of delivering freedom, peace and prosperity to all Sudanese people“ as the statement unashamedly asserts. Wonders never cease!
If you come again, we shall.
The Information Department ,
SPLM–DC
12 June 2009.
Simon Maguor
Press Statement on SPLM’s accusations and petition against SPLM-DC
What exactly is the so-called SPLM-DC for?
The so-called SPLM-DC should be thoughtful and logical when addressing the Sudanese people. The SPLM press release has the details that are trustworthy unlike the above scrap they have posted to the Sudan tribune website. It is great confidence to mention that Lam Akol joined the SPLM in 1986. The argument by these psychologically distorted beings of his recruiting some SPLM cadres into the political stream of the SPLM in 1984 is untrue. However, lack of self –confidence in what one is saying is a source of self-contradiction. Just look at this extract from their above written article, in the ninth paragraph; The statement goes on to turn facts upside down when it accused Dr. Lam Akol of being “in desperate search for power“. If that were to be the case, he could not have turned down the position of Minister of Information and Culture in the transitional government in 1985 representing the Khartoum University Teachers Union (KUTU), and other positions well known to the authors of the statement. The self-generating question is; if indeed Lam joined the SPLM earlier than 1986, how can he be given the ministerial position of information and culture in the transitional government of Khartoum in 1986 given the fact that he was in the bush with the SPLM/A that started in 1983, some three years before?
The argument that Juba was in a better position before the CPA, than today, is null and void and not worth talking of. Such words are screened out by sensible minds but are made usable by men of self-interest that lack the separation of senses from non-sense. The fact known in Juba today is that the SPLM has turned white-houses (instead black-houses where Southerners were slaughtered by Arabs—Khartoum forces) have been turned into social institutions, military barracks have been evacuated from institutions like the school (the university of Juba, At labara Campus which was a Mujahidin Centers is now a prospering educational institution); roads have been, and others are still being, constructed; there is freedom of speech and expressed for all; freedom of worship, just to mention but a few. Their myopic egocentric brains must open wider than this, otherwise they are on the wrong side of intellect or else they are trying to tell us that they lack the traces of human intelligence, or completely out of sight of Juba and South Sudan in general.
Referring back to the Nassir declaration and the Fashoda peace agreement; Lam and his likes, the writers of the article if at all he didn’t impersonate someone else are mentally incapacitated. It is not to our interest to talk of them but because the unwise bring them forward, we end up doing so; when they hit below the bell, we also do so for the safety of South Sudan in order to counter their malicious advance towards us. To be loud and clear, both the Nassir Declaration and Fashoda were a betrayal and deceit respectively for the people of South Sudan. Yes, they agreed with Khartoum on self-determination for the people of South Sudan but was it respected and implemented both in letter and spirit? If only stating the phrase ‘self-determination for South Sudanese’, why not first appreciate the Anyanya One that fought for the separation of South Sudan some decades before them? All in all, wise people learn from mistakes and it is on this basis that corrections to prevent further mistakes of the same type are avoided. For Lam is a hard type to crack for he fails to realize his own failure, let us be directors and nurturers for the politically disadvantaged individuals who are interested in politics but lack the systematic approach in a manner morally appreciable and acceptable to the community. Indeed he formed the SPLM-United in 1991, failed to sustain it and rejoined the SPLM in 2003 after having had enough dropout from politics. If the SPLM was all that bad, why did he rejoin? They should discuss and answer this simple question and although their diminished thinking capacity will never let them get the right answer, let them try doing so. Lam should revisit and implement the dead Fashoda Peace Agreement for it meets their standards; the CPA is too complicated and can’t be held by their infant brains.
Regarding the political freedom in south Sudan, there is no fault. The only problem the writer of this article has excavated is that ‘Political Terrorists’ of Lam’s kinds (the writers of the above press release included) are addicted to staying outside South Sudan and therefore lack first class information. There are many parties are there in south Sudan yet all are free to conduct rallies. They hold the SPLM a scapegoat for their own failures. Instead North Sudan is unsecure for the politically stable parties like other Southern Parties. The recent attack by gunmen on the SPLM headquarters in Khartoum is a sign and symptom of growth of the terrorists’ ethnic group of people in the Sudan. Real democracy by the SPLM calls for broad-based freedom. Lam Akol has taken up the SPLM manifesto in his basket and wants to personalize it. We know that the SPLM is for democratic transformation of the Sudan. The synonym of the word transformation is change! What then is the so-called SPLM –Democratic Change for? Shame on him.
Revise yourselves before others take the task on your behalf. History is a good judge, you have no credibility for the sane. Those who fart in water are easily seen; the so-called SPLM-DC has its failures reflected by its own press releases.