Press Release: SPLM-N delegation led by its Chairman and the Secretary General Continues its visit to the Republic of South Africa.

A high-level SPLM-N delegation comprised of its Chairman, Malik Agar; Secretary General, Yasir Arman; Secretary of finance, Ramadan Hassan Nimir, and its Humanitarian Affairs coordinator, Neuron Philip, is currently on a visit to the Republic of South Africa. The delegation arrived in the Republic on the evening of 6th January 2012, upon the invitation of the leadership of African National Congress, extended by its Secretary General, Mr. Gwede Mantashe to attend the centenary celebrations of the founding of the ANC, oldest resistance movement in Africa, which was held on the 8th January 1912. The visit was also intended to include talks with the ANC leadership on the situation in Sudan and North Sudan.

Since their arrival the delegation made extensive contacts with the ANC leadership and its officials on the Sudan Desk. The delegation also made contacts with political parties and liberation movements from Namibia, Angola, Mozambique and Botswana. They then travelled to Pretoria and Johannesburg and continued their meetings with research centres, and with the Sudan Task Force whose members include representatives from the ANC, the President Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other officials.  The delegation also dedicated yesterday, Wednesday 11th January, to meetings with different media outlets in South Africa, giving interviews to national televisions and radio Stations. Today, the delegation will give a lecture and hold a presentation about the North Sudan question and other related isues to officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ANC leaders and members of the diplomatic corps accredited to South Africa.

The Secretary General of the SPLM-N, who is also a member of the High-Level Political Committee of the Sudan revolutionary Front (SRF), welcomed the African Union recent contacts with the SRF and considered that to be a recognition of the legitimacy of the SRF which constitutes a solid core for the unifying the forces of change. The SRF, with the coordination and the cooperation with other forces seeking change, will develop into a real alternative to the National Congress Party (NCP) Regime. The SRF has a clear political program that will gain increasing national, regional and international recognition and legitimacy. During the visit, the delegation took the opportunity to brief the ANC leadership about the significance of formation of the SRF in realising the society of equal citizenship and of stability in Sudan and in the region.

The Secretary General affirms that the regime’s deployment of elite troops from President Albashir’s own protection force and the paratroopers of the parachute regiment in combat in Altes and Alburam areas, South Kordofan, under direct orders of Omar Albashir against our forces has completely failed. The offensive in South Kordofan has been rebuffed and destroyed by our forces, and a large amount of its armour and weapons have been seized, which could only be seen as crippling military, political and psychological setback for the regime with more to follow. At the same time, four other military convoys were destroyed in the last two weeks in Blue Nile State. Ahmed Haroun, the ICC fugitive governor of South Kordofan, and Omer Albashir boasted that they will defeat what they referred to as ‘the SPLM/A rebellion’ by December 2011. His trial in the Hague is a much more closer prospect for Ahmed Haroun than defeating what he calls the ‘rebellion’. As for Field-Marshal Omer Albashir, we stand as one with the protesting people of Al-Manaseer, and with the youths now calling for change. The regime’s once rising sun is now setting and its arrogant swagger has been diminished by the determination of the of Al-Manaseer protestors occupying State House Square in Al-Damer, River Nile State, and the universities’ students protesting in the cities of Northern Sudan.

The NCP regime is digging its own grave and teetering before a fall. The regime’s headlong rush into a dry-season offensive and its recruitment of militias and paramilitaries is dictated by blind political ambition that does not even heed the requirements of a credible military objective, and is based on faulty intelligence and wishful thinking that only exist in the mind of Ahmed Haroun and his masters in Khartoum. Worse still, is the unconscionable targeting of civilians, as a result.

The field assessments carried out under the supervision of the SPLM-N Humanitarian Coordinators, Mr. Philip Neuron, Dr, Hashim Ahmend Saeed and Mr. Hashim Aurta have uncovered new evidence regarding the targeting of civilians in the conflict areas.  More than 300,000 people have been displaced inside South Kordofan and over 400,000 are displaced in Blue Nile State. The numbers of refugees in the Republic of South Sudan have now reached over 150,000, the same figure is recorded in the UN refugee agency there; and there are more than 38,000 refugees now in Ethiopia displaced from Blue Nile State. At a time when UN records confirm these facts, the NCP defies the international community and sabotages Lady Valerie Amos’ exploratory visit to Khartoum and reaffirms its refusal to open safe corridors for the supply of food in the Two Areas. This a war crime!

Moreover, Lady Amos was only offered a meeting with the junior minister of Social Affairs, Ms. Amira Al-Fadil, who confirmed the regime’s refusal to opening relief corridors to refugees and IDPs displaced by government attacks. The minister, we know, has no say in discharging war related responsibilities. It is indicted criminals and fugitives from international justice within the regime who control the war portfolio. She will be well advised to distance herself from such matters and desist from making incriminating statements that could read as endorsement of war crimes. Her involvement in such matters will make her accountable under international law for crimes that never lapse with the passage of time. She should confine her efforts to ending the misappropriation of the Zakatfunds (an islamic wealth tax); which, under this regime, is never assigned to benefit its god-decreed causes, nor does it reach its needy intended recipients.

The international community is required to protect of innocent civilians when their lives is imperilled, and in providing humanitarian relief when needed. It must break its long silence regarding Khartoum’s use of food as a weapon, starving to near extinction of hundreds of thousands of the sons and daughters of South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur. Over and above the denial of life-sustaining relief from innocent civilians being a heinous of war crime, it will also harm the future well-being of Sudan. It is enough of a warning what has happened in Southern Sudan!