Sudan rebels open second office in Khartoum after peace deal

KHARTOUM, Feb 11 (AFP) — The southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement opened another office in Khartoum amid scenes of jubilation, with throngs of supporters flocking to celebrate.

A northern Sudanese waves the flag of the SPLM/A in Khartoum after the signing of the first three protocols, on Wednesday May 26, 2004. (AP).

The office, in the Khartoum suburb of Hajj Youssef, was the second established by the SPLM in the capital since it signed a peace agreement with Khartoum on January 9, ending more than two decades of civil war.

“This is a step towards establishing the new Sudan of justice and equality,” SPLM representative Ramadan Mohamed Abdullah told guests at the ceremony.

“Our movement is not for a single region but is open to all Sudanese people across the Sudan,” he said.

The crowd danced and sang to mark the occasion, seen as another move by the SPLM to transform itself from a rebel movement into a political organization.

Many of the millions of southerners displaced by the civil war live in Hajj Youssef, a poor neighborhood on the eastern banks of the Blue Nile where a big population of western Sudanese also live.

“Hajj Youssef has always been a beloved place to us,” SPLM Secretary General James Wani told the crowd by telephone from Rumbek, the seat of the interim southern government.

SPLM leader John Garang lived in Hajj Youssef before defecting from the army and going into the bush in 1993 to start a guerrilla war against Khartoum.

“We believe that such offices can play a vital role in promoting dialogue among the Sudanese people who fought each other for decades,” Wani said.

“The first step for building the new Sudan is to promote reconciliation and forgiveness,” he added, saying “the movement will not allow anyone to be isolated from the upcoming national government.”

“Everybody will be represented,” he stressed.

Hajj Youssef was the only constituency in the capital won by a non-Arab and non-Muslim, Father Philip Abbas Ghaboush, a Nuba Anglican priest from the west, during the 1986 general elections, the last democratic poll the country held.

Delegates from the opposition Umma and the Democratic Unionist parties, the two largest traditional political groups in the country, as well as the Beja Congress of eastern Sudan, attended the event.

But there was no visible presence of government officials.

The SPLM opened its first offices in Khartoum last month in a building that used to house US financial services giant Citibank.