Doctor Lam Akol Explains Why He’s Residing In Khartoum
10 min readDr. Lam Akol Interview with Miraya FM
Summary and translation of an interview conducted by Ms Lucy Edward of Radio Miraya FM with the Chairman of SPLM-DC, Dr Lam Akol, on Tuesday the 31st of
July 2012.
Q: The President in his speech yesterday accused the SPLM-DC of working with the National Congress Party (NCP) to destabilize his government. What is your reaction to this?
A: I would like to seize this opportunity to salute our martyrs- from time immemorial through 2005 and up to today- who paid the ultimate sacrifice for South Sudan to be now a free, independent and sovereign state.
Regarding the question, there is nothing new in the allegation. The SPLM leaders have been repeating this allegation right from the birth of SPLM-DC up to now when it is three years old. We have always been challenging them to produce evidence and I still say the same today. They should take their evidence, if they have any, to court. It is the courts that will prove or disprove the allegations.
Let me say this: SPLM-DC organs are now functioning and running in South Sudan and they have no links with the NCP. In fact, it is the SPLM that is in partnership with the NCP as a result of which the NCP is represented in the current SPLM government. There is no doubt that this false allegation is now meant to detract the attention of the citizens of South Sudan away from the life difficulties they are facing as a result of the bad policies and failures of the SPLM and its government. Today, half of our population is in need of food aid, our children have no schools to go to, the population is lacking health services, the insecurity is widespread, etc. All this is happening because the SPLM leaders have embezzled our money and the President is incapable of bringing a single culprit to book. He wants to make the SPLM-DC the scapegoat for the difficulties our people are facing, but our people are cleverer than he thinks the President also threatened not to register SPLM-DC. Well, this says volumes about his attitude and that of his party. If it is the President who decides which party to register or not to register, what is the work of the Political parties Affairs Council that is tasked by the Constitution and the law with just doing that? The SPLM does not respect even its own imposed constitution and laws. The truth is that the SPLM is working to establish a one-party state in South Sudan. In the Political Parties Act 2012, they set out conditions for the registration of parties which they thought will be impossible for any other party to meet. Now, they have realized that the SPLM-DC, their bogey, is going to meet those conditions. This is causing fear and panic within the SPLM leadership. The President is exposing a secret decision taken already by his party. He wants to scare the public not to register with SPLM-DC. I would want to assure our people that nobody will stop SPLM-DC from being registered because we are law-abiding and we shall meet the conditions set out in the law and we know our rights.
Q: What do you think is the solution to the problems facing the county now?
A: When I met the President in Nairobi on 28th of September last year, we discussed this matter. We agreed that they as the Government and we as the Opposition should join hands to tackle together the challenges facing the newly born nation so that it could kick off on the correct footing. In Juba- and in October to be specific- I presented to him written proposals on the issues of national consensus that will help us get out of the problems facing us. They include: unity in diversity, tackling insecurity problems, relations with Sudan, Foreign Policy perspectives and economic outlook. He was appreciative but later the hawks in his party scuttled this national project. They have nobody but themselves to blame. I still think this is the way out of our current situation. If they come back to it we are ready to co-operate.
Q: What do you think is the way out of the current talks in Addis Ababa between South Sudan and Sudan, especially now that US is threatening to impose economic sanctions on both parties?
A: The fundamental problem with the talks in Addis is that they are between two parties rather than between the two countries. Both parties have openly said that they would want to effect a regime change in the other’s country. No talks could succeed in such an atmosphere. I think that there is a better chance of making progress if the talks were to be transformed to be between the two countries. The delegation of South Sudan should include parties other than the SPLM and the delegation of Sudan should include other parties in addition to the NCP. Then and only then, would the attention be focused on the issues rather than on the fear that one party is working to get rid of the other. As to the imposition of sanctions, my advice to the delegation of South Sudan is to persevere in seeking to secure through negotiations our interest on all the outstanding issues. We should not be forced to compromise for the fear of sanctions because our interest is paramount and nobody knows it better than ourselves.
Q: Finally, if I may ask, many are asking the question as to why you are staying outside South Sudan.
A: Where one stays is determined by a number of factors. Personal safety is the first consideration. Second, I do not have a house in Juba and the rent there is quite exorbitant, whereas I have my own house in Khartoum. Third, I do not hold a government position in South Sudan so that I am obliged to stay there. Regarding my duties as the Chairman of SPLM-DC, in this age of information and communication technology, I do not need to be full time in Juba to be able to carry them out. I go to Juba from time to time as was the case between October and December 2011, but carry out quite normally the other functions wherever I may be. The organs of my party all over the country are functioning well and there is no indication that the work has stopped or was impaired by the Chairman’s absence from Juba. We are a party of institutions, not individuals. The SPLM tried recently to exploit this matter in order to split the party but failed miserably.
Lam Akol: Harboring Darfur Movements in S. Sudan Unacceptable
Lam Akol, in an interview with Africa Today website, said relations should not be established with Israel at the expense of the Arab countries because they supported the South indicating that Kuwait had established health facilities after the signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972, while Egypt provided scholarships to 300 southern students annually.
He described Sudan’s deal with citizens of South Sudan after separation as good, pointing out that the problem appeared after the ninth of April by extraction of the documents, where the South Government did not make efforts to extract the documents during the nine months set by the Government of Sudan to implement the said issue.
Doctor Lam Akol Explains Why He’s Residing In Khartoum
01 August 2012—(Khartoum) — The leader of the main opposition party, SPLM-DC, Doctor Lam Akol has revealed that he prefers to stay in Khartoum rather than Juba due to security reasons.
In October last year, Doctor Lam Akol Ajawin returned to Juba after meeting with President Salva Kiir Mayardit in Nairobi.
Both leaders had agreed to work together in the spirit of holding democracy, justice and freedom in the country.
However, a few months later Doctor Lam left for Nairobi, and finally settled in Khartoum.
Some members of the national parliament had previously asked the government to investigate the reasons as to why Doctor Lam was not in the country during and after the independence.
In an exclusive statement to SRS by phone from Khartoum on Wednesday, Doctor Lam Akol explains his reasons for not returning to Juba.
[Lam Akol]: “I am a citizen who has no commitments in Juba; I am free to live anywhere I want to live. I have no government positions that would oblige me to live in Juba constantly. For somebody to live anywhere, is linked with many things, one is personal security that gives you assurance. Truly, my assessment of the situation in Juba is that personal security is not guaranteed. Yes, I have other personal reasons: in Juba I have no house, while in Khartoum I have a house. In Juba people rent for thousands of dollars, I have no thousands of dollars for renting a house, and thanks to the President when I went to Juba last time he put me in the hotel, but I cannot live in hotel at the expenses of the government, and at the same time I am the person who is saying that government’s money should be spent on services to the people. If I live in a hotel this would be a contradiction to what I am saying.”
That was the SPLM-DC’s chairperson Dr. Lam Akol speaking to SRS on Wednesday.
http://www.sudanradio.org/doctor-lam-akol-explains-why-hes-residing-khartoum
SPLM “bad policies” responsible for current problems: Lam Akol
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August 1, 2012 (JUBA) – The leader of the opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement for Democratic Change (SPLM-DC) has accused the south-ruling party of using “bad policies”, which has reportedly resulted into the current problems facing the South Sudanese people.
South Sudan opposition leader Lam Akol (AFP)Lam Akol, in an interview with Miraya FM, also denied SPLM-DC alleged links with the Khartoum regime, and said the “false” allegations are mainly aimed at detracting attention of citizens from the real problems they are facing as a result of government “failure”.
“Today, half of our population is in need of food aid, our children have no schools to go to, the population is lacking health services, the insecurity is widespread, etc. All this is happening because the SPLM leaders have embezzled our money and the President is incapable of bringing a single culprit to book”, the SPLM-DC leader told Miraya.
“He [President] wants to make the SPLM-DC the scapegoat for the difficulties our people are facing, but our people are cleverer than he thinks”, he added.
The SPLM-DC leader, in 2011, unsuccessfully bid for South Sudan presidency losing to the incumbent, Salva Kiir in an election the former claimed was marred by violence, voters’ intimidation and rigging.
Lam also accused President Kiir of allegedly threatening not to register his party, arguing that such a move will largely contravene the constitutional provision of a political party’s affairs council as well as the Political Parties Act 2012.
“The SPLM does not respect even its own imposed constitution and laws”, he said, further accusing the south-ruling party of allegedly working to create a one-party state in the country.
The SPLM-DC leader, during the interview, also accused the President of ignoring a proposal he presented to him on how best the country can resolve the current difficulties facing the population. The proposal on national consensus, he noted, included issues such as unity in diversity, tackling insecurity problems, relations with Sudan, foreign policy perspectives and economic outlook.
“He [President] was appreciative but later the hawks in his party scuttled this national project. They have nobody but themselves to blame,” he said, but added that the SPLM-DC is ready to cooperate, whenever approached.
On the talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia between Sudan and South Sudan, Lam casts doubt on the possibility of a positive outcome, saying the discussions are between two parties, rather than the two nations.
“The fundamental problem with the talks in Addis is that they are between two parties rather than between the two countries. Both parties have openly said that they would want to effect a regime change in the other’s country,” the SPLM-DC leader said.
“No talks could succeed in such an atmosphere”, he added, while calling upon both the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) to include other parties in the talks.
Talks between the two countries, under the facilitation of the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) formally end on 2 August. Both nations, according to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), could face non-military sanctions, should they fail to reach a comprehensive agreement on a series of post-session issues.
“We should not be forced to compromise for the fear of sanctions because our interest is paramount and nobody knows it better than ourselves”, said the SPLM-DC leader, when asked about the possibility of South Sudan facing these sanctions.
http://www.sudantribune.com/SPLM-bad-policies-responsible-for,43431
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