5-16-06, 8:52 am

Editor's note: The Nivasha peace agreement, signed in 2005, was hailed internationally as a vehicle for ending the violence in the Sudan. It's basic point was that representatives of the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), a movement based primarily in the South, would share power with the government of Sudan, ruled by the National Islamic Front (NIF). SPLM, in alliance with other democratic forces, such as the whole National Democratic Alliance, which includes the Sudanese Commuist Party, the author of the statement below, and other democratic and nationalist political forces, had opposed NIF repression in the country and its neo-liberal and exploitative policies since 1989. John Garang, referred to in the statement, was chosen by the SPLM as its representative to the new national unity government. He was soon thereafter killed under mysterious circumstances that have not been fully brought to light.

On 9 January 2006, a whole year passed since the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement in Nivasha between the Peoples Movement for the Liberation of the Sudan (SPLM) and the Islamic government. Hopes for achieving peace, democratic transformation, development, and improvement of living standards were high among the Sudanese people, their political forces and civil society organizations.

Furthermore, many forces realized that challenges are also tremendous. The SCP repeatedly expressed its support for the peace agreement, and for action to overcome its negative aspects, whose existence even the late Dr John Garang did not deny . We continued since the early stages of negotiations to point to the lack of seriousness on the part of the government to achieve peace, and its intention to abort its conclusions. We pointed to the government plans to rob any concluded agreement of its content. We continued to draw attention to the obstacles, delay and violations that the government resorted to since the signing of the agreement.

We deem that the way the government is dealing with the implementation of the agreement is a continuation of the political course followed all through its period of rule since the coup of June 30th, 1989 that brought it to power. It is gaining time, dividing roles among its leading members, resorting to repression and terror, in all forms including physical liquidation, kidnapping, arrests, harassment and verbal provocation that incite discord which is presently used by its leaders to deepen division and create an atmosphere of rivalry and confrontation.

These matters require of the Sudanese people and their active political forces to be alert to what is taking place and resist the methods used by the Muslim Brotherhood [the religious organization behind the Sudanese government--ed.] to violate and undermine the requirements of peace and democratic transformation which, at the end, will make partition of the country a reality. This ultimately will lead to the atomization of the Sudan as it is known in modern times. This atomization will not end with the North and the South. The methods used by the NIslamic Front (NIF) [the political front that weakly masks the Muslim Brotherhood--ed.] are basically aimed at perpetuating the continuation of the empowerment of the cadres and institutions as well as domination of the Sudanese people and the state.

The government apparatus started, since the signing of the peace agreement, to build parallel bodies to those of the state, especially in the domain of security, information and economy. The aim is that the coming partner, the SPLM, should join the official apparatus according to the agreement without knowing about the parallel apparatus which appears under different name and without being able to influence it. It should be noted that there is an intentional mix-up between what belongs to the state, what belongs to the ruling Party and what belongs to the security organs.

The clear difference that was pointed out by many people between the size of expected oil revenue and that which was announced by the government, indicates that this difference is being pocketed by companies of the National Islamic Front and their many cadres that control the oil industry and all allied activities. Thus, if new cadres from the SPLM are joining the ranks of the ministries that are near this domain, the participation of such cadres will be ineffectual if they do not know the sources of corruption, the shadowy deals and the robbery that the ruling Party will assume its continuation even on larger scale. There is a time limit until next elections to increase empowerment “and assume continuation of conditions” in case of electoral defeat. “On the information front we have witnessed since the establishment of institutions such the Sudan Media Centre [SMC] and the Just Peace Forum [JPC]. We cannot also disregard that national media organs such as radio and television continue to follow and implement the government policies. It is an apparatus that is devoted to perpetration of the domination of the ruling Party over the country. All this underlines the fact that whatever change took place is a formal change, for welcoming new partners, who sooner or later will depart. It was apparent since several years that the security apparatus is busy recruiting and luring people from the South in preparation for penetration of the SPLM, and in addition to the clear efforts, that drew the attention of the SPLM, to infiltrate the latter through the big numbers that joined its ranks after the agreement in the North.

Defeating these actions requires unity of action by the political and popular forces to unmask manoeuvres, companies and corruption. We reiterate that if the democratic and popular forces do not unite their efforts, the plans of the ruling Party and its security apparatus will succeed in turning the new partner to another Party such as those allied to it, who were unable to stop the train of the ruling Party. The ministers and officials of the SPLM are surrounded by officials – on all levels – who hold the rules of the game. They are simply gangsters, totally allied to the organs of the ruling Party.

We cannot also disregard the campaign of scare tactics used by the regime’s information centres accused “communists” infiltrating the ranks of the SPLM who are obstructing the implementation of the peace agreement. We call on the various forces to agree upon a national program for the strict implementation of the agreement, realization of peace, democratic transformation, settlement of the Darfur tragedy, diffusing the tension and threat of war in the East and attaining a better life for the Sudanese people. We underline what the late John Garang said to the effect that the agreement is the property of the Sudanese people. Consequently, and without interference in this estimation and calculation of the SPLM, we value the statement of the first Vice-President and Chairman of the government of the South, Mr Silva Kerr, and consider it a commitment to the transparency, democracy, empowerment of the people and rejection of closed-room policies that characterize the totalitarian and conspiratorial regime.

--A statement of the Sudanese Communist Party