SPLM Northern Sector deny members defected to SPLM-DC

By Manyang Mayom

August 12, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), Northern Sector has categorically denied a news report that 23 of its members defected last week to the break-away party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement for Democratic Change (SPLM-DC).

The Secretary of Information and the official spokesperson of the SPLM Northern Sector, Keji Jermaleli Roman, issued a press statement on Wednesday dismissing as “nonsense” a report in the Khartoum Monitor on Sunday, August 8, which claimed that members of the SPLM Northern Sector resigned their membership and joined the SPLM-DC.

The SPLM and SPLM-DC have had a strained relationship since it was established by former Foreign Minister Lam Akol, who announced the break-away party in June last year.

Official Spokesperson of the SPLM-DC, Peter Adwok Otto told reporters during a press conference at the SPLM-DC Secretariat in Khartoum on August 7 that, two former officers from the SPLA (the military wing of the SPLM) and 20 members from the SPLM Northern Sector defected to SPLM-DC.

Otto claimed that more members from SPLM Northern Sector were leaving with the intention of joining SPLM-DC. He projected that more SPLM members would join SPLM-DC.

Roman said that no members from the SPLM Northern Sector had defected and joined any other political organization.

The report carried on the front page of the Khartoum Monitor – under the headline ’23 SPLM NORTHERN SECTOR MEMBERS DEFECTED TO SPLM-DC’ – was completely false, Roman said.

She asked political parties, “who always launched political attacks against the SPLM Northern Sector to avoid such action[s].”

Roman described the claims as a deliberate attempt to create, “confusion to provoke agitation”, in order to undermine the political activities of the SPLM in northern Sudan.

(ST)