جبال النوبة...ضمير السودان الغائب..

Quote: The issue of the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Abyei was one of the most difficult protocols of this agreement to come to. Everything started with a mistake in the Declarations of Principles that IGAD [the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, an organisation of six eastern African countries focused on drought control and development initiatives] gave to the two parties - the North and the South - during the negotiations in 1994. It was not made by the two parties, but drawn up by the mediators. It talked only about solving the problem between the North and the South, and it even mentions the border of 1956 as the division line. The Government rejected the DOP, but unfortunately the SPLM accepted it, without keeping in mind that the objectives of the Movement are to solve the problems of the Sudan, not to be rigid about Africans or Southerners or Nuba. The problems of Sudan are well known. Now they have appeared in Darfur as well. The centre and the periphery? Yes. And so accepting the DOP was a mistake. If the SPLM had just taken a closer look at it, they wouldn't have done it. The DOP are the reason why it was so difficult to enter the issues of the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Abyei into the negotiations: these were not embodied in the DOP. The issues were discussed outside of IGAD first, but eventually it had to come to a comprehensive peace agreement. In this regard the whole world came to know about the suffering of the people of the Nuba Mountains. I think that was a good achievement, for the Nuba to be well known. Take yourself: if you would not have read about the war in the Nuba Mountains, you probably wouldn't have been interested to come down. It is one of the good things the Movement has done.