Dr. John Garang de Mabior: Responding to Sadik El Mahdi Open Letter (2000).

Mr. Sadek Al-Mahdi, President of the Umma Party, and Former Prime Minster of Sudan.

Dear Mr. Sadek al-Mahdi;

I had to suspend my disbelief when I read your letter dated 22nd December, 1999 which you distributed to the public before I even received it. Evidently, the letter is also meant for the gallery, and since that was really what you wanted, then so be it. Your letter is as bewildering as it suffers from grave economy of truth. Equally, it includes uncalled for remarks and propagandist allegations. I assume that you expected me to reply; for otherwise that would be taking me for granted, to let such a letter go unanswered. You therefore called for and deserve this reply.

At the outset your letter starts with a blatant inveracity about the role of your party, that: “As far back as 1964, the Umma Party leadership recognised the politico-cultural and economic aspect of Sudan’s crisis as reflected in the civil war”. You have been Prime Minister twice since 1964, and no other Sudanese politician or political party in our history has had, and squandered, two opportunities to correct things in the Sudan. Indeed, if your claim were true, the Sudan would not have been cursed with two bitter wars. The Sudanese people are not suffering from amnesia and know the facts. Since you chose to start with 1964, let us examine the facts from then. 1964 is recognised in the history of Sudan’s tumultuous civil war, as the year of the October revolution, the Round-Table Conference on the so-called “Problem of Southern Sudan” and the sequels of that Conference. And if there is one government that should shoulder the responsibility and blame for the failure and non-implementation of the decisions that ensued from that conference, for whatever they were worth, it is the Umma Party. Your share of the blame, Mr Former Prime Minister, is colossal since it was you who teamed up with Dr. Hassen al-Turabi to initiate for the first time in the modern history of Sudan, the monstrous idea of an Islamic Constitution in a multi-religious and multi-cultural country like the Sudan. Since then the politics of Sudan have retrograded and gone downhill until we reached the bottom in 1989 with the present NIF fascism. The people expect from you apology and atonement for contributing to the present Sudanese debacle, not the unfounded claims that came in your letter, that your party has always recognised the religious and cultural diversity of Sudan.

Your further claim that your party, obviously under your leadership, has pioneered, in an “uphill battle” all the new ideas that informed the new thinking about the issues of diversity is as false as it is nettling. Who then, one is forced to wonder, are responsible for the old ideas? Pioneering new thinking is hardly the description to be given to the man and party whose battle cry has always been the forcible Arabization and Islamization of Southern Sudan. In this regard let me remind you of the lecture you gave in the Gulf not long ago in which you unashamedly and quite openly talked of how Southern Sudan should be Arabized and Islamized. Those ideas came in your treatise: The Future of Islam and Arabism in Sudan (Mustgbal al Islam wa al Urouba) of which I quoted pages 114 and 115 in my address at Koka Dam on 20 March, 1986. I prefaced that statement by urging the Umma Party representatives not to be disappointed. We neither mince our words then, nor do we now. Let us also not forget that those who espoused the ideas of the New Sudan, whose parentage you now want to ascribe to yourself, were persecuted in Khartoum as fifth columnists by your government, when you were Prime Minister. Whereas the Sudanese people may forgive, they should not be expected to forget. The archives of your two periods as Prime Minister are available to history, as is the period of the Mahdiya, and many Sudanese, especially Southerners, would not want to be reminded of these periods.

What is more exasperating is your reference to your role in mediating differences between Southern and Northern borderline tribes. Let me recall, Mr Former Prime Minister, that in no time in the history of Sudan’s civil war, were borderline tribal conflicts escalated beyond control, than during your term in office; tribal pogroms were unleashed since then. The tribal militias, bitterly referred to as “the Marahiliin” in the South by their victims, were a creation of your government. What the NIF government did later was simply a continuation of the policy of “government tribal militias”, which your government had initiated and scandalously called “friendly forces”. In your type of Sudan, citizens are thus divided into “friendly and unfriendly tribes”. Tribal feuds over water and pastures were not unknown to the borderline areas of Bahr el Ghazal, Darfur and Kordofan, but they were always apolitical and settled by tribal elders. Our people on both sides of the divide have never been driven by the psychopathological politics of ethnic cleansing. It was also your government that transformed the Anyanya-2 guerrillas into a government tribal militia. Indeed, the NIF must have studied the archives of your regime when they negotiated the so-called Khartoum Peace Agreement.

The record of atrocities committed by your government in this regard also included brazen insensitivity towards the plight of those Dinka people who fell victims to those dastardly policies. When two patriotic university professors (Dr. Ushari Mahmud and Suleiman Baldo) raised the alarm bells about the massacre of the Dinka in Dhaein, rather than investigating the horrendous accusations, your government opted to shoot at the messengers, describing them as fifth columnists. Indeed, the resurgence of slavery in the border areas of Northern Bahr el Ghazal is traceable to your period in office, a fact ably documented by the two professors and other independent witnesses. But then should we be surprised since this is in line with your own line! You also alluded to your co-operation with us in the interest of peace, democracy and a restructured Sudan, as well as to your respect of agreements to that effect. Regrettably, this is not borne by the facts. Our cooperation did not start with the NDA; it has a long and tortuous history. In 1986, we met in Koka-Dam, Ethiopia, and your party was among the first to sign the Koka-Dam Declaration emanating from that meeting, only to be disowned by you later when you became Prime Minister. Two years on, we reached an agreement with al-Mirghani, the 1988 SPLM-DUP Sudan Peace Initiative. That agreement, despite the wide public support it received, as evidenced by the reception accorded to al-Mirghani at Khartoum airport on his return from Addis Ababa, was not considered by the official media under your government control as an event worth reporting.

The dilly-dallying of your government in implementing the agreement provided the NIF with the time they needed to prepare for their coup. In fact their inclusion in your government, and your foot dragging on peace, gave the NIF the wherewithal to carry out their plans with impunity.

Nevertheless, giving due to where it belongs, the Umma Party played an important role, together with others, in bringing about the watershed agreement of Asmara in June 1995. However, imputing to your good self and your Party that you were behind the inclusion of the SPLM in the NDA, as claimed in your letter, is simply a gross mutilation of history. All those who attended the 1995 Asmara NDA Conference know that the SPLM was officially designated as the “Convener” of that Conference. All know the role played by the SPLM to make the conference a success. It is mind boggling to read in your letter that it was by your favour and that of your party that the SPLM was included in the NDA! This is an inexplicable absurdity. You also claimed credit for allegedly “introducing the SPLM to Arab opinion in the face of mutual suspicions”. The three Arab countries that I have visited in the course of the struggle are Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and neither you nor your Party played any role in these visits. Actually you played a negative role in the Arab World against the SPLM/SPLA. Technology has made the world very porous. Our information indicates that you have done the exact opposite of your claim. Whenever you had the opportunity you are reported to have actually de-campaigned the SPLM/SPLA in the Arab world. In point of fact sympathetic elements in the Arab World have sometimes asked us such embarrassing questions as: “What is the problem between the Former Prime Minister and the Movement?”

Mr. Former Prime Minister, since the Asmara Conference of 1995, the SPLM and Umma Party have had good working relations, both within and outside the NDA. However, since your emergence out of Sudan, there was a weather change within the NDA. We could sense a desire by you to re-do every single agreement or institution of the NDA. On many occasions you have attempted to create conditions for the NDA to rubber stamp your reconciliation with the NIF regime. These attempts were of course successfully resisted by the NDA. Indeed, let me borrow a leaf from your own lexicon, many Sudanese had claimed and warned us that you came to the NDA as a “fifth columnist” for the NIF. The Geneva and Djibouti agreements and your continued warming up with the NIF regime point to some truth in these claims.

Your letter then came to points on which you claimed that we do not see eye to eye. On my part I can enumerate many others. Your first point, however, was the IGAD peace process, which you claim you wanted broadened to involve the “uncatered for aspect”. What is indeed uncatered for in the IGAD is not an aspect; but a party, the NDA within the IGAD negotiations, and Egypt as a state with legitimate interests in, and concerns about, the Sudan. As regards the first “aspect”, the NDA Leadership Council (NDALC) came out with a clear decision on the matter requesting inclusion of the NDA in the IGAD process (March 1998).

The SPLM signed up to that resolution while reminding all and sundry that the decision to include NDA in the IGAD process belongs to three parties, namely, the mediators and the two negotiating parties, which hitherto have been the SPLM and the NIF regime. So, it is unfair to accuse the SPLM with lack of enthusiasm for inclusion of the NDA in the IGAD process, indeed it is belied by the decision of the NDALC in Kampala in which it has acclaimed the SPLM position in this regard. We are sure of the position of the IGAD mediators on inclusion of the NDA in the IGAD process; but not so with that of your new allies in Khartoum as they are up till this moment silent on the issue. This being said, there were indeed lingering and genuine fears within our ranks that the inclusion of certain elements of the NDA in the IGAD process might be a harbinger to the undoing of the IGAD DOP, particularly on the issue of religion and state. Those fears were not off the mark as proven later by the Djibouti farce which, for all intents and purposes, amounts to watering down the IGAD DOP. This is a matter the NIF fought strenuously to achieve. The Djibouti agreement is otherwise a bastard amalgam of the IGAD DOP, the Asmara Resolutions and familiar NIF double talk.

Concerning Egypt’s participation in the IGAD process, the SPLM since 1997 and in direct consultations with that country, strove to include Egypt on the IPF. You also claimed that we had second thoughts about the Joint Egyptian-Libyan Initiative. This is not just a misreading, but a total misrepresentation of our position. That position was made, in no uncertain terms, in Tripoli when we espoused the initiative.

Briefly the SPLM position is summarised in the following three points:

There must not be two parallel initiatives at the same time. The Joint Egyptian-Libyan Initiative should therefore be co-ordinated with, or related to, the IGAD peace process to deny the NIF regime their reckless habit of forum shopping.

The NIF regime should respond favourably to the NDA requirements for creating a conducive environment for dialogue, including scrapping the so-called “Ganun al-Tawali” and unbanning of political parties.

The NDA must have one negotiating position before it negotiates with the NIF regime, and related to this requirement is that a comprehensive cease-fire should be negotiated as part of a comprehensive political settlement.

Both Egypt and Libya, with whom we have close contacts and open channels of communication, are very aware of this position. I had to travel personally to Cairo and Tripoli to present the position of the SPLM, and I held a press conference in Cairo, thus leaving nobody in doubt about our position. We therefore do not see in your misrepresentation anything other than an attempt to muddy waters between the SPLM and the two countries. Fortunately those countries have long histories and look at issues much more critically than Sudanese politicians who assume otherwise. Your letter then delves into another misrepresentation; this time of realities within the international scene; the spectre of an international resolution of the Sudan conflict forced on us and alleged human rights abuses. You referred to discussions you have had with “important players” in the international community that left you in no doubt that the SPLM together with the NIF are accused of perpetuation of the war and human rights abuses. Mr. Former Prime Minister, we live in a porous world and shall, therefore, not be taken by statements like this. We too have contacts with international players. I do not believe that there is any danger of international military intervention in the Sudan. Your thesis on the possibility of imposed solutions is eyewash meant to bamboozle the unwary, and an unscrupulous attempt to mobilize the North, and beyond, along racial and religious lines. Perhaps that is why you managed to smuggle the issue of alleged internationalization of the Sudan conflict into the Tripoli Declaration, a matter I raised with you in Cairo as unfounded and unnecessarily divisive of the NDA, and for which you apologised. Nevertheless, I wish to assure all and sundry that the SPLM is a grown-up organization that is guided by principles and consistency, which are known to the Sudanese people. For a number of years we have been steadfast in rejecting calls, coming from those “important players”, for a comprehensive cease-fire prior to a political settlement. We equally have never appealed to others to fight our wars for us. It is mind boggling for such an accusation, of internationalization of the war, to come from the same man who sought UN intervention to restore power to him as they did with Arstide in Haiti. Your lamentations on the duration of the war are also suspect to say the least. The Sudan could have been wallowing in peace since 1986 were it not for your prevarications on implementation of the Koka-Dam Declaration of 1986 and the Sudan Peace Initiative of 1988, not to mention the wasted nine hours of meeting that I had with you in 1986. I now come to your surprising accusations and questioning of the human rights record of the SPLM/A, worse still comparing it to the structured policy of the NIF government. I said surprising because you are the least qualified to lecture us on human rights abuses. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Despite the inconsequences of your human rights remarks, indeed their inappropriateness to the main tenor of your letter, we shall address them head long, if only to put the record straight. Again, you solicited for our response on this issue, and so you shall have it.

The SPLM/SPLA, as you should know, is not a government restrained by internationally recognised covenants, norms and obligations. It is a liberation movement waging a war for justice, but nonetheless curbed by internationally recognised laws of war and good behaviour towards innocent civilians, as well as towards captured Prisoners of War (POW’s). As such, our record is an open book for all to see, particularly by those living and working in our midst. There are more than forty international NGO’s working in the liberated areas, and it is they, not those judging us from distant capitals of the world, who can attest to our human rights record. Your accusations of us are based on hearsay, newspaper reports and reports of international human rights groups, most of which are based on second-hand and dubious sources. Moreover, you should know that the SPLM/A is a movement supported voluntarily by the civil population. We could not have survived without the ready and willing support we receive from our grassroots. That being said and human nature being what it is, excesses by zealous warriors may sometimes lead to overstepping the bounds of propriety. When that happens and it is detected, it is always checked and those responsible for it are brought to book according to law.

On the conduct in the war, you more than anybody else, know that we have been holding thousands of Prisoners of War (POW’s) despite the onerous task that attends their upkeep. You would agree that in war human emotions are at their peak, and so it is in war that respect for human rights can best be judged. We have instilled in our soldiers, the SPLA principle that “the object of war is not to kill the enemy soldier, but to render him non-combative”, and that “if an enemy soldier is disarmed or unarmed, killing him would amount to murder”. Many POW’s were captured by the SPLA in battles with forces under your supreme command, when you were Prime Minister. May I ask how many POW of the SPLA did the army under your command capture and keep? History has it that to your army the only good Southern fighter, even when he was rendered inoffensive, was a dead one. When you were Prime Minister, your then Army Chief of Staff, General Abdalazim Sadik Mohammed, announced that your army had captured 27 SPLA POW’s, but that all of them had to be killed to relieve them of their pain! This pattern of behaviour reminds Southerners of the period of the Mahdiya, when whole tribes were wiped out in the South. Least you forget and have the temerity to want to become an authority and advocate of human rights, perhaps we should remind you of the Juba, Wau and Bor massacres of the 1960’s, all committed when you were Prime Minister.

This painfully brings back to memory other sad episodes. The remorseless pattern of insensitivity towards fellow citizens did not spare even your closest friends and allies among Southern politicians. The saga of William Deng shall remain indelibly etched both in our memory and psyche. William Deng, who was presumed to be your closest ally, was brutally killed by the army when your party was in power and what did you do? However, your energetic efforts to bring to task those who were accused of murdering your great uncle, Imam al Hadi, during Numeiri’s rule, 18 years after the event, tells us a different story; that in your scheme of things there are two classes of citizens in your vision of the Sudan. Up to this day, the killers of William Deng have not been brought to book, despite your having been Sudan’s Chief Executive twice, and you know who these murderers are, Mr. Former Prime Minister. I cannot end this paragraph on the subject of human rights, which you chose to bring up, without reminding you of the Bor “incident”, which occurred in the 1960’s when you were Prime Minister. You went to Bor then and wept profusely at the grave of a certain Captain of your army that had been killed in battle by the Anyanya guerrillas of that time. You are reported to have, in one way or other, ordered the army to avenge the death of this Captain. And not surprisingly, shortly after your return to Khartoum, more than 30 prominent chiefs, including the Paramount Chief, Ajang Duot, were murdered in cold blood by your army. Some of the sons of those murdered chiefs are now commanders in the SPLA. They may forgive, but they cannot forget, and it also adds insult to injury for you to lecture them on human rights.

Mr. Former Prime Minister, during the 1994 Pan African Congress in Kampala, Africans in diaspora from the Americas tabled a motion demanding reparations for the Atlantic slave trade. There was a very spirited debate on the subject, but finally a resolution was passed demanding reparations from the sons and daughters of those slave traders. In the case of the Sudan, Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud has recently published a very authoritative book on the saga of slavery in the Sudan during the Mahdiya. Nobody should be surprised if some Southerners demand reparations for the Sudanese slave trade from the Mahdi family. Perhaps you should be reminded that the present wealth of the Mahdi family includes income from the period of the slave trade, as can easily be verified in Ustaz Nugud’s book. We expect remorse and atonement from you for any meaningful national reconciliation, not the kind of lecture about human rights that came in your letter. Such a lecture evokes bad memories. Your inadequacy in the human rights sphere was not only limited to the periods of war, whether in the 1960’s or 1980’s, your democratic record left a lot to be desired. So let us revisit the 1960’s when you were Prime Minister. Were it not your party and you yourself who expelled elected members of parliament, banned a political party and introduced into the draft constitution the charge of apostasy, the same charge with which the 74 year old man, Mahmud Mohammed Taha, was indicted and executed by Numeiri? So, what right do you have to lecture us on democracy and human rights, when both your past and present are littered with a flagrant display of callousness spiced with arrogance? The problem, as I could detect from your letter, is that you think the past is irrelevant, the present is all that counts, and the future shall take care of itself.

You claimed that, within the NDA, the SPLM/SPLA “maintained a relative organizational and political distance”, that we (SPLM/SPLA) are “in the NDA but not of the NDA”. This is another of your several

misrepresentations of reality. Those who were present in the 1995 Congress of the NDA will attest to the sacrifices that the SPLM/SPLA had to make in order to be accommodative, so as to have the NDA moving. This explains the meagre representation of the Movement in both the NDA Leadership Council and in the Executive Bureau. You should really have commended the SPLM/A leadership rather than condemned us for the magnanimity we showed at Asmara in 1995. You also referred to your suggestions for reforming the NDA, which were largely rejected by the Alliance. I want to assure all and sundry that the SPLM/A’s commitment to the NDA is unswerving, in the battlefield as in the political arena. In the former, you know that we have the largest force; that is the ultimate sacrifice. This was not done througha vacuous appeal forHijra, which seemingly fell on deaf ears; but through sustained professional planning, commitment and leadership. You would probably counter that it is the political arena that matters, and you would further assert that your party is the biggest in the country, as came in your letter. But I challenge this; is it really the case that you are the largest party in the Sudan?

The SPLM has never contested elections with the Umma Party, and so there is no objective basis for comparison, since largeness is a relative concept. However, your claimed large size was never reflected in the NDA. Before you left Khartoum in 1996 to join us in the NDA, the story I heard was that the poor recruitment showing of the Umma party was due to your being held hostage by the NIF. However, when you finally came out and called for Hijra for your faithful to join you, there was no significant increase in your recruitment. I am the Chairman of the NDA Unified Military Command (UMC), and the reality is that the New Sudan Brigade (NSB) has more Northern Sudanese in it than the whole army of the Umma Party, not to mention Southerners, whom I presume to be Sudanese. I therefore fail to see the objective meaning of the claim that your party is the largest in the country. If the Northerners who are in the NSB could voluntarily give their blood to fight for the SPLA, why would they not give their votes to the SPLM in a free and fair general election? Indeed, based on our common experience with you in the NDA and in the war, one has justifiable cause to conclude that theSPLM would come out ahead of the Umma Party in a free and fair general election. The claim that your party is the largest party in the Sudan is therefore just another of the many misrepresentations or elusions in your letter. Mr. Former Prime Minister, calling your colleagues in the NDA “dead wood”, as came in your letter, has more to it than meets the eye. This “dead wood” are the same forces with which we want to carry Sudan through the interim period, unless if you believe that Sudan is destined to be ruled by one party; indeed one man. This is of course untenable and that is why we have all along accepted to cohabit with all manner of politician and live with the dead weights of history. Failure to accommodate each other’s views, however divergent, does not bode well for the New Sudan. As a man who prides himself of being Sudan’s apostle of democracy, perhaps you may need to appreciate that democracy is the most humbling, because it reduces men to natural proportions. As for those of us who were born natural, we naturally have no problem with this. However, for those who believe that they are divinely ordained with super human faculties or abilities that would put them above everybody else, they shall perpetually fail in a multi-faceted democratic environment, especially ours which is characterised by multiple diversities.

I was tickled to read in your letter that your meeting with al-Beshir in Djibouti was supposed to be “ordinary” but turned into something else. Equally revealing was your apparent ability to achieve in three hours what we failed to achieve in ten years of negotiations with the NIF. Alas, your joy with Djibouti is neither shared by your colleagues in the NDA (Kampala meeting) nor with the NDA inside Northern Sudan. Obviously, you were not overjoyed by their reaction; hence you referred to a staged Cairo rally. For all that I know the Cairo rally was attended by all the NDA parties. Moreover, the position taken by the NDA in Cairo was affirmed by the full NDA meeting in Kampala in which the Umma Party was censured for the Djibouti mishap. Surely, the Kampala meeting was not by any stretch of the imagination staged. Perhaps nobody has told you that one of the reasons the Sudanese people give for their reluctance to remove the NIF regime in an Intifadha is that they shudder at the prospects of some “dead weight” of history returning to power. Ironically, the Sudanese people blame us for giving shelter in the NDA to known historical liabilities.

You also veered in your letter to my Washington visit and drew your own propagandist conclusions. The insinuation carried in your reference to this visit is that the SPLM/SPLA is working with or for Washington. This is of course a false and malicious allegation intended to malign the Movement in circles known to you. Surprisingly, you saw it expedient to give a copy of the letter you wrote to me to the same Washington, from which you tried to distance yourself in your accusations of us. Mr. Former Prime Minister, the Sudanese people know our track record over the years, as an independent and patriotic Movement that has stood against all odds. The SPLM has been consistent in its political stances on the main issues; conditions for unity, religion and state, and respect of Sudan’s multiple diversity. It has never been we, who changed their positions on those issues. So, whether in Washington, Cairo, or Tripoli, or in Ruritania, we always stood firm by our principled positions. However, if Washington, or any other

Capital, shares our positions on those issues that is the more reassuring.

You further accuse the SPLM/SPLA of disapproving of NDA participation in IGAD and of repeating what you called “the unacceptable non-paper of Mr. Johnston’s delegation”. Both accusations are unfounded and unfair. The SPLM/SPLA supported the March 1998 NDA resolution to this effect, and in Kampala we came out openly to welcome NDA participation in IGAD. What was not resolved was the mode of that participation, pending endorsement of NDA participation in IGAD by the mediators and the NIF Government. As to the arrangement I proposed for including the NDA within the technical committees of the SPLM that was meant as an interim arrangement till the parties concerned agree to the inclusion of the NDA in its own right as peace negotiator. For our hurry to find ways and means to include the NDA in the process, we expect to be thanked not reproached. Since the Kampala meeting there was one session of negotiations with the NIF government under the auspices of IGAD. If our call was heeded we could have not only assured NDA’s participation inthe process, but also tested the seriousness of your new friends in

Khartoum in accepting that participation. As to the divergence of views between Washington and other capitals on peace initiatives, that is of no concern to us; our position is clear on the Joint Libyan-Egyptian Initiative, but on which you tried to score points to mobilise those countries against us. We accept whole-heartedly the Joint Egyptian Libyan Initiative on the basis of the principles enunciated above, which are consistent with the letter and spirit of the Tripoli Declaration, and in the interests of the unity of our country (the New Sudan). On the mode of participation of the Joint Egyptian-Libyan initiative, we suggested formation of an “African IGAD Partners Forum (AIPF)”, which would include Egypt and Libya and seven other African countries. Now in heaven’s name what is the relation between this SPLM/SPLA position and the non-paper of Mr. Johnston’s delegation, which you alleged we repeated in Kampala? Strangely, it is your good self who borrowed from our position of the AIPF, when you said that your so-called “All Party Conference” will have for its mediation mechanism what you called “a two plus five representing our North African and Horn of African neighbours, backed up by an extended IPF” (emphasis mine).

You referred to my Kampala speech as “scathing, unfair and distorted”. Indeed, it was scathing in its objectivity, but neither unfair nor distorted. I commenced that statement by quoting Dr. Francis Deng that “in the Sudan what divides is what is unsaid”. I believe that it is time to stop burying our heads in the sand, or our differences under the rug. We owe it to the Sudanese people to tell the truth, enough for the white wash of smudge. Your letter proved us right, when you insinuated that you and your party are beyond reproach since you “represent majority opinion” in the Sudan. You also made a bizarre claim that in the leadership of the country the Umma Party had “made the greatest input, among Northern Parties, in the making of new policies towards the causes of the marginalized Sudanese groups”. Those are indeed very mighty claims. They expose all that is rotten in the old Sudan; the belief by some that they historically and perpetually own the Sudan, if not have a divine right to it. But thanks anyway for the admission. Indeed, if there are “marginalized groups”, there must be “marginalizers”, i.e., those who marginalize these groups. And one of the “marginalizers”, your good self, has finally identified himself, via your claim that you have made the greatest “output towards the causes of marginalized groups”. Need I say more?

Your letter describes the language I used in my Kampala speech as containing “a political language, which represents a complete adoption of the political rhetoric of some Northern ‘lost causes’ elites who would dearly like to recruit the SPLA to fight for their lost causes”. The SPLM/SPLA, Mr. Former Prime Minister, is not in the cattle or slave market, and you should be the first to realize this. How many times have we resisted your calls for a bilateral alignment that would exclude others? Though I do not know who those “lost cause elites” are, I very well know that nobody can use the SPLM/SPLA to fight their causes, lost or otherwise. This is actually part of the problem, that some political forces have the audacity to think that they can broker their way into power using others.

Moreover, there is an even more sinister insinuation in your accusation, which is the allegation that Northerners in the SPLM/SPLA are the ones who think for and therefore misdirect the Movement. This fallacy is not new nor confined to you, as it is entertained by those Northern political forces that become frustrated in their attempts to use the SPLM/A to broker their way to power. But what are the facts on this issue. The SPLM/A articulated its vision of the New Sudan in its Manifesto, published in July 1983. At that time there was not a single Northern Sudanese in the SPLM/A. It is therefore the vision of the Movement (initially articulated without Northern input) that brought Northerners into the SPLM/A. It is a gross misinterpretation of history, if not biased chauvinism, for anybody to think that it is Northerners in the SPLM/A who do the thinking for the Movement.

Finally, I make reference to your alleged strategic drive for a just peace, democratisation, regional stability and the restoration of Sudan’s status in the community of nations. This is meaningless rhetoric in the light of the dismal history we have just enumerated. A new, peaceful, democratic and internationally respected Sudan cannot be midwifed by those whose main concern is to repackage the same old stale wine in a new bottle, however beautiful that bottle may look. However, all evidence points to that your so-called Comprehensive Political Settlement is a euphemism for reconciliation with the NIF regime, and from the position in which you are in today, reconciliation with the NIF regime, unlike your reconciliation with Numeiri’s Socialist Union in 1977, would be tantamount to surrender. I warned you of this dismal prospect last June 1999 in my address to the meeting of the NDA Leadership Council in Asmara, Eritrea. Take my advice for what it is worth; you and the Umma Party are better off in the NDA than in the sinking ship of the NIF. In Kampala the Movement was satisfied with the censure, and as you know we did not press for the expulsion of the Umma Party from the NDA, and that still remains our position.

In closing, reference is made to your anxieties about the changing international and regional environments. In our search for peace, justice and equality we have never, since 1983, lost sight of our main objectives despite the shifting sands of regional and international politics. We struggle for justice, equality of all nationalities and cultures, fair play, an even political ground, and equality of opportunity for all irrespective of religion, race or gender. It is only in such an environment that unity and the New Sudan are possible. It is only in the context of the New Sudan that democracy can ever be meaningful in the Sudan. Those are basic values that are invariable, and are not conditional to regional or international changes. However, your gleeful remarks about these changes in favour of the NIF were very revealing. In our view, the dividend of being principled is much more valuable than what you called in your letter the “NIF-Intransigence dividend”.

Our record on the search for peace is unblemished. Since the days of Numeiri, we have talked with all governments that have come and gone in Khartoum, including yours and the NIF’s. So no one can accuse us of being “eradicationalist”, a buzzword that keeps, together with “internationalization of the conflict”, emerging in all your utterances of late. With the present NIF regime alone we have had more than 10 different negotiating sessions; so we know more than anybody else, the nature of the beast. Certainly we are not going to accept your belaboured speculations, particularly when they are based on an image of a reformed NIF seen through the distorting prism of those in a hurry to recapture an illusory power.

Mr. Former Prime Minister, please accept the highest of my regards.

Dr. John Garang de Mabior SPLM/SPLA, Chairman and Commander-in-Chief, SPLM/SPLA.