Statement on Yasir Arman Visit to Germany

On a two-day visit to Berlin, the Secretary General of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement held a series of important meetings with senior officials in the German Government, Parliamentarians, heads of research centres and church leaders.

On Thursday 27th October 2011, the General Secretary met Mr. Gunter Nooke, Representative of the German Chancellor on African issues at the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development. He also met with Johannes Selle, the  Christian Democrat Bundestag MP and a member of the Committee for Economic Cooperation and Foreign Aid, who focusses on Sudan. These were followed by a meeting with Christoph Strasser, an SPD Bundestag MP and the party’s spokesperson on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid. On the same day, he also met with Mr. Michael Flugger, Deputy Director General for Foreign Affairs, Security and Policy on Global issues, at the Federal Chancellory. He concluded his Thursday schedule with a working dinner with Karsten D. Voigt, a former Government Coordinator of German-American relations, who also worked under the internationally renowned Chancellor Willy Brandt, as one of leaders of  SPD Youth. He also had an input in designing the SPD’s foreign policy.

On Friday 28th October, the Secretary General met with Dr. H.E. Volker Faigle, Commissioner of the EKD Council on Sudan. As a result, the Council will soon issue a clear statement in support of the Sudanese Peoples’ quest for democracy and respect of human rights and religious freedom, outlining their position on the humanitarian situation in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur, and calling for the linking of any economic assistance to the NCP government’s respect for human rights and providing immediate humanitarian relief to the needy in those areas.

The Secretary General was next received by Mr. Jan Bittner, senior Foreign  Policy Advisor and Policy Planning Staff CDU/CSU Planning Group, in the office of the chairman of the ruling parties’ caucuses. He also met with officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in charge of the Horn, East Africa and Sudan. He further met with Associates of the Middle East and African Division SWP/ Foundation of Science and Policies Division, and Prof. Volker Perthes, Director of Middle East and Africa Division. He concluded his second day of appointments in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a meeting with Amb. Dr. Heinrich Kraft, the German Government’s Special Representative for Dialogue between Civilisations, in the presence of the head of the Sudan Desk at the Ministry. The Secretary General gave a detailed briefing on the political situation in Sudan, and urged those he met to side with the Sudanese people in their search to end the war, stop human rights violations and atrocities, and resolve the country’s chronic crises of governance, which can only be ended by restructuring Khartoum as the centre of power.

The Secretary General called upon the German officials and legislators to support the demand of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement in opening  corridors of humanitarian assistance in order to bring food to the needy. He urged that an International Committee of Inquiry into human rights violations be set up.

He further argued that the regime currently commits more than 70% of its budget to security and on its war effort. Therefore, any economic assistance whilst the country is in the grip of dictatorship, corruption and war is unpardonable. He encouraged the adoption of a holistic approach to the Sudanese crisis: that improvements of the regime’s human rights record, the ending of the conflict in the ‘New South’ in North Sudan should be preconditions of any economic support and debt relief from the international community.  Any such economic support from the International Community would be collusion with an unjust war and war crimes. Therefore, holding an economic conference on Sudan in Turkey, without such preconditions, sharply contradicts the position of the international community on war crimes and the indictment of the Sudanese President and other officials. They should rather support the Sudanese people, whose efforts have now turned to ending dictatorship, the war, and achieving democratic transformation as a precondition to sustainable economic development and thus the end of their suffering.

At the end of his visit, the Secretary General highly commended the efforts of the Sudanese Diaspora, SPLM-N chapters and friends of the Sudanese peoples in the United States and Europe for their unwavering support of the aim to refocus international attention on the grave atrocities, human rights violations and war crimes committed by the NCP and its leaders and urging an end to the war and the resolution of the governance crises. He finally called for speeding up the efforts to unite the forces of change in Sudan.

The Office of Secretary General
Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement- North
29th October 2011