SPLM’s Luka Biong calls for justice for victims of Khartoum’s actions

September 27, 2011 (JUBA) – Luka Bion Deng, a senior member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), on Monday called on the international community to hold Khartoum accountable for its actions.

“The international community must scale up efforts to bring the leadership of NCP [National Congress Party] to justice” by “strengthening efforts of International Criminal Court (ICC)” to apprehend the culprits of atrocities including those recently “committed in the three transitional areas of Abyei, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile”, said Deng in a statement at the UN Watch summit in New York.

UN Watch is a non-governmental organisation based in Geneva, which monitors the work of the UN, in accordance with its mandate.

Addressing We Have a Dream: Global Summit against Discrimination and Persecution, which brought together political opponents, activists and survivors of human rights abuses from authoritarian regimes around the world, Luka declared that peace would not come to the region if justice for crimes and atrocities committed by the government of Sudan is not administered.

Luka, a native of the contested region of Abyei, became the first senior government official to resign his ministerial position after invasion of the region by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in May 2011.

“The UN knows of clear cases of crimes against humanity in South Sudan, yet it does nothing,” said Luka.

He claimed that the SAF invasion of Abyei was premeditated, following the failure to fully mobilise members of the Misseriya ethnic, who are traditionally sympathetic to the Khartoum government and that the “NCP has started now after the displacement of Ngok Dinka to settle Arab nomads in the Dinka land thereby changing the ethnic composition of the area by force.”

Luka told those assembled that “in Sudan there are heroes and heroines dying or suffering every day “ because of their “opinions, ideas, conscience, race, religion or being in Abyei, Nuba Mountains, Darfur and member of SPLM-North. They need you to stand up for the injustices falling upon them.”

The UN estimates that the ongoing conflict in South Kordofan, which includes the Nuba Mountain has displaced 60,000 and Abyei 100,000 – both of these states are battle grounds for NCP and SPLM-N troops.

Also speaking at the event was John Dau, one of Sudan’s “Lost Boys” – orphans of the civil war between north and South Sudan. He told the assembled, “We need help. We do not want another generation of lost boys and girls.”

(ST)