تصريح من الأمين العام للحركة الشعبية شمال السودان الثلاثاء 6 سبتمبر

Press Release
SPLM/N Position on the regional and international consultations to stop the war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile States

The SPLM/N leadership has been consulted by a number of concerned regional and international bodies and countries on the unfolding human catastrophe precipitated by the National Congress and the need for a speedy end to the current conflict.
As part of the consultation, we received an invitation from the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, inviting the SPLM/N leadership to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for consultations.
The SPLM/N has similarly been consulted by the office of the Chairman of AUHIP, former President Thabo Mbeki and also by the US Special Envoy to Sudan Ambassador Princeton Lyman. We have also conferred with the Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Haile Menkarios. In the light of these consultations, the SPLM/N would like to underline the following principles and new realities:

1-Perment and just peace is a strategic goal for the SPLM/N.
2-The SPLM/N highly values and appreciates the concern of the regional and international community and will always be ready and available to consult with them.
3-The National Congress ignited this war and must fully bear responsibility for its consequences. Moreover, it is the National Congress that dishonored the Addis Ababa Framework Agreement in an utter contempt to the regional and international efforts!
4-We appeal and ask the regional and international community to seriously take in to account the fact the NCP is using food as a weapon in the current conflict, denying hundreds of thousands of civilians from humanitarian assistance and using some of them as human shields. This act is unacceptable and constitutes a war crime. There is a need to open safe corridors for delivering aid to the needy civil population. In this context, Sudan has precedence in the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) which saved millions of civilians during the war in South Sudan. The same model can be applied taking into consideration the realities of today.
5-Sudan Air Force is being used by the National Congress in targeting the civil population and civilian installations from Blue Nile to Darfur. Therefore, we urge and appeal to the international community, particularly the UN Security Council to apply a NO-FLY ZONE from Blue Nile to Darfur. 5-With the SPLM/N now having been banned; thousands of civilians killed, injured, displaced, or forced to flee as refugees in South Sudan and Ethiopia; and the Chairman of the SPLM/N and the only truly elected governor in Northern Sudan having been removed unconstitutionally and state of emergency declared and SPLM/N leaders being hunted and arrested all over Sudan and with SPLM/N properties and documents confiscated, offices closed down countrywide, the CPA has practically been dismantled. The National Congress, by this unwarranted aggression, has created a full-fledged war, engulfing the New South in the North. Will it then be business as usual for the National Congress?

Yasir Arman
SPLM/N Secretary General
September 6th, 2011

the NCP is using food as a weapon in the current conflict, denying hundreds of thousands of civilians from humanitarian assistance and using some of them as human shields

Therefore, we urge and appeal to the international community, particularly the UN Security Council to apply a NO-FLY ZONE from Blue Nile to Darfur.

Press Release

NCP offensive against the SPLA/N in Blue Nile fails: Latest Update, Sept.8th,2011

NCP continues to use food as a weapon, denies access to humanitarian assistance in the two areas The SPLA/N has defeated a major NCP offensive on September 7th, 2011, destroying a convoy on the outskirts of Damazin and capturing the last remaining NCP garrison of Khor Dahab which has been used as a base for assembling and mobilizing forces to attack Gissan town.

The NCP attack was launched from two main axes , namely Eastern Part of Blue Nile- Gissan-Menza, where the SPLA/N has cleared the whole Eastern sector from the NCP forces.

With the fall of Khor Dahab garrison, the SPLA/N is in full control of the Eastern sector. Meanwhile, in the South Western Sector, the NCP mobilized and sent a convoy of two battalions plus towards Dundru- Kurmuk road. They were intercepted by the SPLA/N forces only 21 kilometers South of Damazin. The force was repulsed and dispersed, leaving behind all their equipment including, tanks, artillery and mounted Toyota land cruiser vehicles. NCP Antinov airplanes have been bombarding the site throughout the night in an attempt to deny the SPLA/N the equipment by destroying them. Yet, in the morning, the SPLA/N took three mounted Toyota land cruisers and one mounted Ural truck. The search of the areas for the equipment continues. In a separate development, the SPLA/ N captured the strategic garrison of Seilak in the South Western part of Blue Nile. The SPLA/N forces are moving towards Bot, the only garrison remaining for the NCP forces in the South Western part of Blue Nile up to border of the neighboring Republic South Sudan.

In a related development, the SPLA/N received huge supplies of ammunitions and medicines dropped by the reluctant NCP Air Force, who inadvertently dropped the loads to our areas. By so doing, General Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, NCP Minister of Defense, has become the SPLA/N Quarter-Master General. We thank him for that.

Meanwhile, the SPLM/N leadership last week, after the NCP’s unwarranted attack in Blue Nile, resolved that General Malik Agar would be the Commander-in-Chief of the SPLA/N in Northern Sudan while General Abdel Aziz Adam El Hilu would be the Chief of Staff of the SPLA/N. The rest of the General Staff will be announced. Hence, the SPLA/N is to be developed as a national liberation army. Its main goal is to achieve the aspirations of the Sudanese people in restructuring the center in Khartoum; and also to realize just peace, democracy, equal citizenship, good relations with our neighbors and the international community.

It is worth mentioning that the Sudanese Air Forces is extensively bombarding the civil population areas and civil installations, including worship sites. As a result, thousands of people are now displaced while others have either been maimed or killed.

The NCP continues the same policies that it started in Southern Kordofan in Blue Nile, denying the civilian population in the areas controlled by the NCP the right to stay in the displaced camps and pushing them back towards war zones. By doing so, they are being used as human shields.

Likewise, the NCP is denying access to the international organization to the areas controlled by the SPLM/N using food as a weapon, an act which constitutes a war crime. The only organization that is allowed even in the NCP
controlled area is the Red Crescent and similar agencies. These are NGoS that are controlled by NCP security agencies. They lack capacities and yet experienced international organizations are being denied access to the areas. Arbitrary arrests for leaders and cadres of the SPLM/N are continuing all over Northern Sudan. This is in addition to closure of offices, confiscation of vehicles and properties. In the Northern State, the National Congress Security
Agencies arrested Mohammed Mahmoud Al Awad, the SPLM/N political secretary of the Northern State in the city of Dongulla along with Hashim Musa, the Finance Secretary, Shams Eldin from the Finance Secretariat, Ibrahim Gasim, Mirghani Tiya and Maker Deng Kur, a former SPLM/N member from the Republic South Sudan. In Western Darfur, the security forces closed down all offices, arrested Ustaz Arbab Mohamed Ibrahim, the SPLM/N Candidate for the position of governor of Western Darfur, Saad Sandell, former State Legislative Assembly member, Abu Baker Yousif Zakaria, secretary of the SPLM/N for Administration and Organizations, Daoud Arbab, Secretary of Finance, and Samer Yousif, secretary of Women Affairs. In South Darfur, offices were closed down, documents and properties confiscated and many were arrested. Among them are Abu baker Haroun, the Chairperson of Eldain District, whose whereabouts are not known. In Kassala State, eastern Sudan, offices were closed down in Kassala city and all districts. Properties and documents were confiscated. Among those arrested was the secretary general of the SPLM/N Khalid Abdel Qawi. They went as far as interrogating his old mother, his wife and sister. A well known SPLM/N activist Nazar Bushara has also been arrested. They further arrested the chairperson of Wed El Heleiu District and other SPLM/N members.

Conclusion

1-It has evidently become clear to the NCP that the eradication of the SPLM/N is a not a picnic. It is a wishful thinking and a mission impossible.

2-The NCP propaganda that the Government of the republic of South Sudan is behind what is going in the two areas does not hold water. The NCP themselves were fighting in the two areas and have had problems in these areas for the last 22 years of their rule. In contrast, the Government of the Republic of South is just two months old. The NCP is clearly looking for a scapegoat to hang their defeats. The NCP fought the people of Eastern Sudan, Darfur and the South Sudan long before the Republic of South Sudan was born. The current conflict is a creation of the NCP in that they sowed the seed of the problem when they voluntarily destroyed the CPA; attempted to disarm the SPLA/N and rejected the Addis Ababa Framework Agreement.

3-The SPLM/N and other resistance movements and democratic forces are determined to put an end the illusive NCP program of the second Islamic Republic, a Taliban Republic that is based on heavy human cost and loss, denial of diversity, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terrorism.

Yasir Arman

SPLM/N Secretary General
September, 8th, 2011

Yasir Arman: Sudan Needs a New Paradigm To End its Conflicts