SPLM-North threatens use of force against Sudan’s NCP
December 27, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The head of the North sector at the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) Yasir Arman today warned that they will be forced to bear arms should the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) restrict its activities.
“The ex-fighters from SPLM in North Sudan are more than all Darfur rebels combined. We don’t want to go down this road because it is harmful to the stability of the North and harmful to Sudan,” he added.
Last week Arman said that if the South as a result of the upcoming referendum, the SPLM’s Northern sector would become an independent organization.
“It is going to be a political force to be reckoned with … The north is a very diverse place. It is a place that needs democratic transformation. It is a place that needs different policies from Khartoum to the different regions of Sudan.”
Arman said the party would counter the vision of northern Sudan set out by the country’s president Omer Hassan al-Bashir in a speech this month in which he said that the North will change the constitution after the South’s secession reinforce Islamic Sharia’a law and make Arabic the official language.
But several NCP officials have suggested that they will not allow SPLM-North to become a political party given its affiliations with what will be a new state.
The SPLM, founded by later leader John Garang who later became Sudan’s Vice President, was based on what was named as “New Sudan” vision which called for the establishment of a new system that is founded on equal citizenship rights rather than religion or race or ethnicity.
Arman, who was Bashir main challenger in last April’s presidential elections, had said that the new party they will form in the North would initially keep the SPLM name but remain independent from the party in the south.
“It will be like the relations between the green parties in Norway and in Britain. They are in different countries but they share the same vision” he said.
(ST)