Sudan parliament recesses without passing key laws
June 24, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese national assembly headed into summer recess without approving key laws needed to conform with the constitution and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)signed in 2005.
The parliament speaker Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Tahir told reporters that there is plenty of time to endorse remaining laws when they return in October.
On the referendum law Al-Tahir said that the NCP view is based on the belief that they will not facilitate secession through a law.
He added that the Southerners will be given the choice to choose between unity and secession but the CPA encourages parties to make unity attractive.
The main issues being discussed on the referendum law include the seat of the Referendum Commission, its chairmanship, composition of the Commission, voter definition and qualification and voting centers.
The CPA stipulates that the people of Southern Sudan will exercise their right to self-determination through the exercise of an internationally monitored referendum to either choose to create an independent country or confirming the current unity of Sudan.
The SPLM is concerned that delay in passing the law will push back the referendum date similar to the manner by which the election date was rescheduled from July 2009 to February 2010.
Al-Tahir today rejected any talk of further postponing the elections despite failing to adopt the two laws.
The NCP insists that the security and intelligence bureau should be tasked with more than just gathering and analyzing information. Opposition parties want to overhaul the bureau’s powers particularly the power to arrest.
Critics say the current form of the security agency prevent the conducting of fair and free elections.
(ST)
Jur_likang a likan'g
Sudan parliament recesses without passing key laws
Unless NCP wants to rewrite the already signed document CPA, then the GOD given right of Self-Determination choice by Southerners under international supervision is a must case inorder for us not to go back to history and borrow the deeds that began in 1955. We are a people who want to choose our destiny peacefully but we should not be underestimated. It is not SPLM or USAP or any other political party to decide for us what we want as a people in making this noble choice. Millions of our people died for this cause and millions are ready to lay their lives for this if if it is not granted to the south. Here we must be clear to every body. Jallaba knows very well that all the agreements made with them right from Fashoda Agreement, Khartoum Agreement, and the present CPA anchors on Self-Determination. Therefore let us not act like kids. We should honour the agreement.
Thyinka
Sudan parliament recesses without passing key laws
NCP will not facilitate secession through a law?! Ok, how will they facilitate unity through a law. That 80% of Southerners must vote for secession and it has to be approved by NCP?! I believe that anything short of giving Southerners the right to vote on a fifty one percent majority basis is a violation of the peace agreement. You don’t make unity attractive by putting legal hurdles to the desires of the majority. You make unity attractive by doing what the citizens want socially, economically and politically.
As usual, Arabs as a tradition are banking on the fact that they can still fight Southerners but I think they are going to learn a bitter lessons if war start again and everybody turns against the center as Darfur have done. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed. The Arabs will continue to misbehave until the last ideologue of Arabic apartheid is dead.
Kur
Sudan parliament recesses without passing key laws
The SPLM as a party we have trusted must know one thing: there is no way the people of South Sudan are going to accept the delay of the referendum. We’re not begging anybody to give us our freedom. We fought for it, and we’re going to take it whether it pleases any one or not. Hence, we do not require a law to open the path to our freeedom, we can create one for ourselves. What we require now is the SPLM and the Government of South Sudan to prepare a ground for declaring an independent state in South Sudan by Jan. 1st,2011 should any delay happen. Any one who will try to temper with this process will face our ultimate wrath. No more, no less.
Kur