Waleed Hamid says:The project I sacrificed for is being slaughtered in front of me

(After we puplished this Intervew from Al-ahdath newspaper with commander in SPLM Waleed Hamid in المنبر العام I found it again in internet in english).. Fadwa


Waleed Hamid says:The project I sacrificed for is being slaughtered in front of me
Tone of sadness and grief were evident on his voice as he spoke to me, and he repeated phrase of (we have failed) more than once. . That was the stance of the leader in the SPLM northern sector, Waleed Hamid.

And grief was not only in the words of Waleed, the building of the SPLM north sector seemed empty that day. Only three young men were present in the building. The offices on the ground floor were closed. The silence wants to say the building is abandoned.


The media leaks and the general atmosphere indicate that the South Sudan, goes toward the separation, and this raises the question: Is the SPLM no longer hopeful to implement its unionist project after five years since the signing of the peace agreement?

The New Sudan project and the building of a united state based on new bases are made by the SPLM, but this conception is contradicted by two cases; the first one is the National Congress who has its own view known as the civilization project the NCP said it will never abandon for anything even unity.
The second issue was the old ambitions and dreams of the southerners toward secession and establishment of their own state.

You, the owners of the project New Sudan, and the National Congress, the owner of the civilization project, reached a historical peace agreement. Did the SPLM abandon its new Sudan project against the civilization project of the National Congress? It is a state of failure rather than abandonment.

Dr. John Garang was talking a lot that the arrangements that have occurred during the agreement are the minimum for the new Sudan, and the agreement was supposed to be the foundation for completing the new Sudan project, but we did not move an inch toward building the new Sudan, and that is the failure.

After five years, you are still at the beginning point, and your are in state if siege, who is besieging you? Are they the SPLM factors or the NC factor?
There are two reasons: the first is political failure that the SPLM, the NCP and the whole political forces are responsible for because we have failed to produce a type of government that satisfies all sectors of the Sudanese people.

We spent the five years in quarrel and things that do not serve the future of Sudan. The other political forces were isolated from this big national project, so we have failed to develop a national project and state that could be a model for co-existence for all Sudanese people.

Why was that?
For two reasons, in my view, the National Congress did not help us in this regard. And we, in the SPLM, did not initiate a project and propose it for the NC and the others. Now, we did not make any political or theoretical progress since the January 2005.

What is the reason for the inability state of SPLM? Do you attribute this inability to the absence of its leader Dr. Garang?

It is not that simple, but I think that the agreement and the conditions that followed it made the movement to indulge in issues of governance and implementation of the agreement so that it had no enough time for the brainstorming to come out with a project to be proposed to the other powers. But, the National Congress has further contributed in obstructing and disappointing the SPLM and the other forces.

Despite this I am against holding the National Congress alone the burden of what will happen, because the NCP is not the owner of the unionist project like the SPLM project of building a Sudanese state on new basis. If we failed, we should bear the biggest share of the responsibility for not making the change that makes unity attractive and to build Sudan on a new basis.

So, you see now conflicting and contradictory statements by SPLM leaders, but all of these are individual and personal statements, and that the SPLM as institutions, of which I am a member, did not discuss this matter nor take a clear and explicit stance with respect to unity or separation.

I believe in the necessity and possibility of unity of the Sudan on new basis, and there are others who do not believe in the same thing, but the two different matters were not discussed at the SPLM institutions so that the SPLM can adopt an option. But, it seemed that the SPLM is avoiding taking stance.

The meeting of the liberation council was adjourned?

The adjournment of the meeting was for objective reasons which are the visit of the SPLM leaders to Washington, and to make further arrangements, but the important thing was the movement's political and moral responsibility.

Why this situation?
Because it cannot make change against what its membership wants, and can not disclose something that makes it outside the political action.
You say your party is democratic, who is responsible for the absence of dialogue? Are the party's institution or its foreign concerns?

After the signing of agreement, there was an apparent absence of the dialogues that were taking place earlier, due to the many reasons, and we have been busy with governance issues.

In my opinion, we have made the implementation of the agreement our main priority as if the agreement is a legitimate alternative to the New Sudan and this is a mistake, we made strategic mistakes. they are not the internal mistakes alone, the international community fell in the mistake of forgetting Sudan issues, and become not desirous to sponsor the Sudanese issue to its ends.

I feel sadness in your tone?

Yes, I have spent twenty years in the SPLM, and I see the project I sacrificed for is being slaughtered in front of me.

That was some translated excerpts from interview by Al-ahdath paper with Waleed Hamid, the leader in the SPLM north sector.

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