Africa

June 27, 2020 (JUBA) -The spokesperson for the South Sudan Patriotic Movement Stephen Lual Ngor denied differences within the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) and asserted its unity and cohesion.

media official Stephen Lual Ngor (ST photo)

Ngor was reacting to reports about a new disagreement between the alliance leaders about who to nominate as the new governor of Jonglei State.

Media reports said the minister of higher education Denay Chagor has been picked by several groups for the position of the state governor while others are backing the nomination of Majok Diel for the same position.

"All the factions of the alliance are united and there is no reason for friction," said Ngor.

"All of us will participate in the government institutions in the national unity government, state governments and local governments as well as the parliament," he further said.

SSOA during the first power-sharing had obtained the Upper Nile State but the SPLM-IO's objection to the deal brought President Salva Kiir and his first deputy Riek Machar to strike a second agreement on 17 June allocating Jonglei to SSOA and Upper Nile to SPLM-IO.

Ngor, however, said that SSOA forces initially wanted to reclaim the Upper Nile State and had undertaken contacts with the presidency to emphasize their rejection of Jonglei State.

He further pointed to a statement supporting the 17 June deal issued by SSOA secretary General Lam Akol saying it has been issued without prior consultation with the alliance leadership council.

The Secretary-General's statement supporting Kiir-Machar deal "violates the SSOA constitution, which gives the right to make decisions to the leadership council".

(ST)

June 27, 2020 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's ruling partners discussed in a joint meeting on Saturday the processions that the Resistance Committees will organize next Tuesday and decided that the Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok would address the nation on this occasion.

The Resistance Committees, gathering youth at the neighbourhoods' level who backed the four-month revolution and now the main popular supporter of the transitional government, will stage national rallies on June 30th, to demand the government implement the transitional programme announced in term of justice and democratic reforms.

The joint meeting of Saturday included the Sovereign Council, the Council of Ministers and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), in addition to the delegation of armed movements visiting Khartoum.

"The meeting discussed the arrangements for the launch of the processions, in remembrance of the Sudanese revolution, which was achieved with the blood of the martyrs that will not be in vain," said Siddiq Youssef a leading member of the FFC in statements after the end of the joint meeting.

He added that the parties discussed demands included in the memoranda submitted by the organizers to the Sovereign and Council of Ministers and the FFC.

The families of the martyrs demand to expedite the trial of the leaders of the ousted regime, achieve peace, and bring to justice those involved in the killing of protesters during the attack on the pro-democracy sit-in on 3 June 2019.

On the other hand, the political and professional entities call to complete the structures of the transitional authority including the formation of the Legislative Council and the appointment of civilian governors.

The deputy head of the Umma National Party, Maryam Sadiq al-Mahdi, said that the meeting agreed on the need to respond to the aspirations "the patient people". Also, she announced the formation of a joint room for follow-up the processions across the country.

She added that the meeting agreed that "there will be an important letter from the Prime Minister on this occasion that addresses the issues raised through the important memorandums submitted by the Resistance Committees and the families of the martyrs."

On Saturday the Prime Minister announced that he had received a progress report from the Commission of Investigation into violations committed during the attack on the sit-in camp by the security forces outside the general command of the Sudanese army on 3 June 2019.

It is worth mentioning that the National Umma Party participated in such meetings for the first time after it had frozen its activities during the past months in the FFC alliance because they declined its calls for reforms of its structures.

For his part, Lt Gen Yasir Alatta, a member of the Sovereign Council, affirmed that the military establishment has laid down plans to protect the youth of the revolution in all their celebration sites.

There are security reports saying that the supporters of the former regime plan to use this occasion to carry out riots and sabotage actions in the capital Khartoum.

(ST)

June 27, 2020 (KHARTOUM) - The Sudanese government expressed hopes to reach an agreement on the pending issues with the visiting delegation of armed groups within the next twenty-four hours, paving the way for the signing of a peace agreement in Juba.

The statement was made by Omer Monis Minister of the Cabinet Affairs after a meeting held in Khartoum to discuss the outstanding issues in the peace talks including the transitional government, the Sovereign Council, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), and a delegation representing the armed movements negotiating in Juba.

Monis affirmed that all the participants agreed on the need to achieve peace as soon as possible, stressing it is a top priority for the transitional period in Sudan.

"From this evening until tomorrow, we hope that the dialogue between the mediation, representatives of the armed struggle and the transitional institutions as well as the (government's) political incubator (FFC) will lead to results that herald the good news speeding up peace," he said.

He further stressed that the parties agreed on most of the issues raised during the meeting.

The government and the armed groups have failed to strike a deal on the power-sharing at the national level as the demands of the movements have been seen excessive in Khartoum.

The movements want to have 4 seats at the Sovereign Council, 9 ministries at the transitional government and 140 of 300 seats of the transitional legislative council.

Also, Darfur groups demand 60% of the transitional institutions in the western Sudan region and $13 billion during the upcoming 10 years.

The Sudanese minister said that all the participants praised the tremendous efforts made by the government of South Sudan to bring peace to Sudan, in the interest of the two countries. He underscored the strong relations between the peoples of the two countries and their desire for peace and development.

For his part, Tut Gatluak, the Chief Mediator said that the delegation of the Armed Struggle Movements (expressed used after the withdrawal of the SLM- Minni Minnawi) presented their vision to address the outstanding issues to the meeting and discussed all national issues.

Gatluak further said that peace in Sudan is imminent.

The security advisor to President Salva Kiir reiterated that South Sudan and its leader President Salva Kiir is determined to achieve stability and peace in Sudan.

He further said that the mediation carried the message of peace to Khartoum and that the arrival of the delegation of the armed groups to Sudan before the signing of the peace confirms their seriousness and readiness to achieve peace.

(ST)

Feeding an entrenched cycle of violence and reprisal, 580 civilians have been killed in Mali so far this year, as worsening security conditions and widespread impunity undermine efforts to protect people caught in intercommunal fighting, the UN Human Rights chief said on Friday. 

By: Hussein Arko Menawi

When we look at the political timeline in Sudan it gives us strong evidence, how the political future in Sudan is critical, bleak and confusing. It is also a good reference to understand to what extent our political forces are unable to accept and manage change. Change is something inevitable but if there is a resistance to that change, it would be uncertain how long the change takes place, what complications are in its process and how the process navigates to its final destination. Another important question is that who manage this change? As William Arthur puts" The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, the realist adjusts the sails", how and who adjusts the sails for the process of formation of Sudan is our major question of this topic.

Due to wars in the margin, notably, there has been a big change in our political environment but to what extent the change is conceivable to our politicians and how far they are ready to respond to the change.

If time went back, and there is a window was opened to view the political events that came within the period of independence or the generation immediately after the independence, surely politicians would discern clearly in what type of socio-political environment did they practice politics at that time compared to the new development occurred in many aspects of the current political environment in Sudan. The political interaction of several decades since independence has made the weight of political events change. This change happened in a very complicated political process.

In fact, from the perspective of many Sudanese as well as outsiders, they see Sudan is a country in a process of formation but this process is crippled by huge distrust resulted from a long-standing conflict in which engaged all the diverse components of the society.

Politically the consequence of fierce long-standing military and political conflict is the new situation in which the balance of power has become uncertain and fluctuating. However within uncertainty there are many indicators suggest that the rules of the political game currently are not absolutely under the control of the traditional politics, rather, the rules are in a continuous shift in favour of the marginalised people. Undisputedly the process of change has been in a continuous evolution breaking the barriers of the conventional game of power manipulation exercised by the political leaders who tried to win the game or get access to power just for the sake of a small sector of the Sudanese at the expense of the large and diverse community of Sudan.

The game of political decision monopoly in the country by a minority after exiting the condominium rule from Sudan has gradually faced a pressure from active counter marginal political forces who have started to engage in confrontation with the central government since 1955 in Torit, Southern Sudan at that time, and this situation has created an atmosphere of no common loyalty among the Sudanese.

The clear evidence to this allegation is that since the independence never happened throughout the history of Sudan all the Sudanese have come together to express their opinions in a shared loyalty on an issue whether a national issue or issues related to foreign positions. Although there are some factors have influenced the process, the war in the margin as changing instrument is the most influential factor that steadily making a very strong impact on the process of changing Sudan. When tracing the process back, it seems that since mutiny in Torit in 1955 the mechanism of war has proved to be an only invariable factor among many negative variable factors influenced the process, especially factors like sporadic coup d'etat, mismanagement of foreign policy and the policy of ideological-oriented intervention into our politics.

In spite of politics of gun mussel that made a great shift in the power balance in Sudanese politics, in addition to the catastrophic events that have coloured our political scene, it seems that the political parties in Khartoum still see politics in Sudan only within the conflict over their vested interests. It is really ridiculous when the political parties in Khartoum don't consider political evolution that strongly in connection with the military violence overshadowed by the war in South Sudan, Darfur region and the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains where most populations categorized under marginalization.

During this diabolical war environment of more than half a century, there a crystal political evolution or say the political process has been snaking its way to somewhere not clearly its destination is predictable, or in other words, where and when the process would be anchored. But what a predictable is that the old politics that dominated political arena for decades is giving way to dynamics resulted from the interaction of marginalised people in war-torn regions.

The political development resulted from the wars brought political forces from the margin into a line of power conflict with completely different issues and different tools from that prevailed in the post-independence period until April 1985 uprising.
The political mobility that dominated the political scene in Sudan, whether during October uprising or during April 1985, was just a class struggle between political parties on privileges that can only be obtained through power manipulation and the nature of the conflict is not beyond common routine demands such as public service or basic needs or how to share in power and thus, the political elites were unable to address the roots of the Sudanese crisis, neither during October 1964 nor during April uprising 1985. Now, what a ridiculous is that the political scene after accumulated similar experiences that lasted for decades still the political parties are stuck in the square of 1964 & 1985, while the old political landscape of Sudan has shaken tremendously under the seismic of brutal wars in the margin. In spite of a change introduced by the conflict in the margin, unfortunately, what's going on now is a feverish political competition over power privilege and social class interests and the competition is taking roots every day deeply to colour our political landscape with gloomy future. When we look at the political position of the traditional parties led by FFC particularly their resistance to peace whether, in Addis Ababa or Juba, the competition over narrow privileges has become more intensive than before Ironically, the power-hungry opponents of this competition are still the same political parties even if they are under new names. It's also notable that the conflict still a copy of the old practices through a new dimension of Center versus margin has become dominant. Ie.there is still a high degree of hostility between extremist ideologies, especially between those of political Islam and the entire forces of the left. The growing tension between the two blocs now is about to reach the peak and every day there is enough evidence that their confrontation is imminent. After the collapse of the NCP regime, the tension has become more acute among the traditional political forces than the tension between the fighters in the margins and the central government.

The confrontation between left and right forces definitely will not exceed the limits of historic longstanding disputes between the two blocs and for that, they are now preparing for a final showdown and for sure the fundamental issues of Sudan, particularly the issues that ignited war in the periphery are not of their concerns.

It is true that since the collapse of the NCP dictatorship nothing has been achieved. While many claim that the new government needs ample of time to eradicate the presence of NCP from the state organs, however, this is not an excuse for the government to focus on minor issues without giving a priority to peace and the current situation is a very clear indication that if the issue of peace not addressed, definitely it will lead to political chaos. Let's say we need time to address the chronic and heavy legacy that Sudan inherited during the past decades, including the legacy of the 3o years of NCP regime, but what unrealistic phenomenon is that politics remains static and stuck on old practices and doesn't respond to changes but continues to revolve within the orbit of the same old ideas.

It is an extraordinary and a critical political situation, it is not a coincidence, it has been developed mainly by, the traditional political parties even if there are other suspects. It is so difficult to find out a safe exit when vision becomes very blurred and the main focus is how every political party to win the battle over power controlling without taking into consideration the issues of the margin and the size of the political change that has been brought by the margin wars into the political scene. What makes things more pessimistic is that, instead of directing the state's capabilities to manage crises and address key issues, the political parties are now lining up for an imminent battle against each other and the worst is the one connected to components of transitional government both the military component and the civilian one. The differences within the government not only seriously affected the future of the transitional period and its interim government but it also particularly impeded the progress of the ongoing peace process in Juba.

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