Sudan opposition gives NCP ultimatum to hold constitutional talks
December 27, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Mainstream opposition parties in north Sudan have threatened to mobilize with the aim of removing the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) from power if the latter ignored their demand to hold a constitutional conference to address a host of issues related to the political situation in the country in view of the likely secession of south Sudan in January 2011.
As widely foreseen, the semi-autonomous region of south Sudan, whose population follows Christianity or traditional beliefs, will vote to secede from the predominantly Muslim north in a referendum vote due in January 2011. The plebiscite is the final stage of the 2005’s peace deal which ended almost half a century of intermittent civil war between the north and the south.
Prominent opposition figures in north Sudan, including the Umma Party leader Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Popular Congress Party, Hassan Al-Turabi, and the secretary-general of the Sudanese Communist Party, Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud held a meeting on Sunday, 26 December, at the headquarters of the National Umma Party (NUP) in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman.
The meeting issued a communiqué reiterating the opposition’s demands to form a transitional government to organize a constitutional conference to address a number of issues.
The statement specified that these issues are “Darfur crisis, the rising cost of living, public liberties and establishment of strategic ties between north and south Sudan.”
“In case the demand to hold a constitutional conference is rejected, the forces of national consensus will immediately embark on a political work aiming at removing the regime through tested methods of civil and peaceful struggle.”
The statement went on to say that the proposed conference should also determine how north Sudan would be ruled if the south seceded, noting the “fierce assault” on public liberties as manifested in the recent speech in which president Al-Bashir declared that the north would transform into an Islamic state with Arabic as its only language if the south decided to vote for independence.
“If god forbids, the South separates [then] the constitution will be amended [and] a lot of things relating to the South will go away,” he said in a speech in the eastern state of Al-Gadarif.
“But the opaque talk [about] the Sudanese people I don’t know what…is multi-racial and multi-religious, the [Islamic] Shari’a will be the main source for lawmaking….and Arabic language will the official language of the state as will be stipulated in the upcoming constitution,” Al-Bashir added.
The opposition alliance also condemned last week’s “brutal attack” on members of the Umma Party which occurred on Friday, December 24, when police forces clashed with Umma party supporters as they were marching towards the headquarters of the party’s religious sect known as Al-Ansar. The daughter of Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi was severely injured in the clashes and later hospitalized.
The attack on Umma party supporters is seen as a sign of the increasing vulnerability experienced by the NCP in the run-up to the referendum.
Opposition forces also condemned what they called as “the incitement of extremist religious currents,” in an apparent reference to calls made two days ago by a group of radical Islamic clerics known as the Legitimate League of Muslim Preachers and Clerics to scrap the referendum and impose Islamic Shar’iah laws on south Sudan regardless of the will of its citizens.
The opposition parties took a hit on the ruling party for the recent Youtube video which showed a Sudanese girl being flogged mercilessly on the head and feet by policemen as she screams and pleads for help.
They further accused the NCP of using Islamic laws to “humiliate women” and “entrench totalitarianism which extended to include Darfur activists.”
Moreover, the political parties vowed to work seriously to prevent a return to civil war and seek peaceful solution to Darfur crisis away from the NCP’s methods of “military options and measures of repression.”
Between 30 October and 3 November of this year, Sudanese security authorities arrested eleven activists and journalists from Darfur region, accusing them of working with Darfur rebel groups and spying for the International Criminal Court (ICC), which charged Sudan’s president Al-Bashir with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide allegedly committed during the conflict in the western region of Darfur.
Darfur conflict, which began in 2003, killed more than 300,000 and displaced more than 2 million, according to UN figures.
(ST)
LongTweng
Sudan opposition gives NCP ultimatum to hold constitutional talks
Why now, it is damn too late, all of you are retarded.
harry
Sudan opposition gives NCP ultimatum to hold constitutional talks
“You better be careful what you did to me, somebody else may do it to you”
Harry.
John M. Atem
Should thugs be allowed to rule the country?
Folks, I have been constantly asking myself this question: Should thugs be allowed to rule the country? And my answer to this question has been emphatically no. Thugs should not be allowed to rule the country because the lack high abstract intelligence knowledge on how to rule the country.
And a country that allow thugs to rule it will definitely come to complete political ruination. And that country is Sudan. This is a country that has been ruled by marauding gang of thugs with out political direction for many years since its inception as an independent political state from Anglo-Egyptian colonial administration on January, 1, 1956.
Indeed, these destructive thugs have been the sources of all generational wars that have plagued the Africa’s largest country. But another question is: What is the solution to all these political problems? The solution to all these problems is the division of Sudan into two countries that live side by side in peace and harmious coexistence. This is the only way this magnificently great country and its people will be able to enjoy peace and prosperity.
Folks, Sudan in my opinion is a country aggravatingly destroyed by many years of backward, primitive and underground politics. The signing of 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement has completely put an end to the longest chapters of slavery, exploitations, and killings. Its also gave the people of Southern Sudan a golden opportunity to charter better way out of these political messes.
Folks, I have said many times on this magnificently great website and I want to say it once again, let us stop preaching down-market, diversionary, and outdated primitive stone age period politics that have reduced us into the lowest common denominator in the scale of contemporary human beings. Let us encourage, promote and emphasis our shared commonality and de-emphasis our personal and long-standing political differences for the greater good of our peace-loving and liberty-seeking people of Southern Sudan.
Finally and last, but not certainly the least, May almighty God creator of heaven and Earth bless the long-suffering, abused and long-objectified people of Southern Sudan who have been brutally humiliated beyond belief by various murderous, thuggish and Islamic fatalistic regimes that have come and gone in the lunatic asylum capital Khartoum.
The writer of this comment is John Atem. He is the orphaned son of late freedom fighter. He has successfully completed Certificates in Agriculture, Peace Education and Diploma in Criminal Justice.
Deng E. Manyuon
Sudan opposition gives NCP ultimatum to hold constitutional talks
Mr Faruq Abu Issa,
Though you are not effective with your NDA, please keep distance from those of El Sadiq, Ibrahim El Nugud and Abdulla Hassan El Turabi. Nothing new they are able to offer to change the Sudanese political life. We need fresh ideas. Yasir Arman, Malik Agar, Abdul-Aziz, trade unionists, student movements and the rest of Darfurian leaders are best alliance to work with.
It is a common sense that the NCP will lose its political legitimacy in the North if South secedes.
Deng