Despite its misgivings about the April Uprising, the SPLM did not delay in engaging in dialogue with DANS that wrongly assumed they were the main forces after the demise of the Nimeiri regime. This dialogue with DANS resulted in the Koka-Dam Declaration and Ambo Workshop recommendations. The Koka-Dam Declaration and Ambo recommendations were about the necessity of a national constitutional conference, which would rally all the Sudan political forces, including the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), in search for viable and just solution of the issue of war and the acute national crisis. The constitutional conference was basically an idea of the SPLM, embodied in its Manifesto of 1983. Koka-Dam also called, among other things, for the postponement of the scheduled elections that were to be held in April 1986, until the constitutional conference was held so all the Sudan political forces enter the elections under a clear political agenda and constitutional arrangements.

Because of the Northern traditinonal sectarian parties greed for power and the myopic vision of the DANS, the demand of the SPLM to postpone the elections was rejected off hand. The reason being that if the elections were postponed the military would get addicted to power. Hence, in April 1986, elections were only held in the northern constituencies, excluding most of the southern constituencies for reasons of security, producing half legitimate parliament—the same mistake that the same traditional Northern political parties and the October Uprising forces committed in 1965. There were no specific demands SPLM asked the DANS to perform, as Dr. Abdulla would want his readers to believe.  An honest and credible historian would find no blame with the SPLM, unless Dr. Abdulla wanted the SPLM to settle for the status quo ante and give up the armed struggle and return to the failed Jallaba Old Sudan.

Nevertheless, our fallen hero, Dr. John Garang de Mabior, met in Addis Ababa with new ‘old’ prime minister, al-Saddig al-Mahdi, for a nine-hour-marathon deliberation in which all the issues in contention were thrashed out. The meeting left the declaration of that agreement or understanding to the prime minister to declare on his arrival back to Khartoum. Al-Saddig did not intend to reach any agreement with Dr. John Garang. At his arrival back in Khartoum, al-Saddig began the idle talk that the representatives of his Umma party that concluded the Koka-Dam Declaration were not authorized, and that major parties such as the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the National Islamic Front did not participate. In fact, the oscillation of al-Saddig was the product of his undeclared support of the September Laws and the objection of the party of his brother-in-law, Dr. Hasan al-Turabi, to Koka-Dam, as sell out to the SPLM.

In 1988, the SPLM decided to approach the DUP, the junior partner in al-Saddig coalition government, to negotiate a bilateral agreement with view of bringing them on board into the Koka-Dam Declaration. The dialogue resulted into the historic al-Mirghani-Garang agreement. However, the senior partner in the coalition government, Umma, opposed the DUP/SPLM Sudan peace agreement, and actually voted it down in the Constituent Assembly on December 21, 1988, using the votes of the NIF’s members of the Assembly. As such, the Assembly vote embarrassed the DUP and forced it to quit the coalition. This forced SAF to step in with its famous memorandum in February 1989, compelling al-Saddig to dissolve his partnership with his brother-in-law and called for a government of national unity and accept the al-Mirghani-Garang agreement as the basis for peace.

Dr. al-Turabi’s NIF, which had formed a coalition with Umma after the DUP’s withdrawal from government at the end of December 1988, was infuriated by al-Saddig’s acceptance of the DUP/SPLM agreement, as the basis for peace. Following the resignation of the NIF from the government and its refusal to join in a government of national unity, talk of military coup filled the air. As Garang put it in 1994: “In fact, by 1989, the traditional Jellaba system of Old Sudan became untenable and could only maintain itself by resorting to its most extreme form.”  That is why the evil fascist NIF of al-Turabi and Omar al-Bashir staged a coup on June 30, 1989 to preserve the Old Sudan and declared Jihad on the SPLA and the people of the South.  All the Sudanese, except Dr. Abdullah, know the rest of the story.

It is clear therefore that it is the indecisiveness of al-Saddig al-Mahdi, the weaknesses of the forces of moderation in the rank of the Arab-Islamic elite and the fascist NIF lust for power that cost the Sudan the treasured democracy and progress.

Dr. Abdullah’s claim that he has never strategically differed with the SPLM is a whitewash and the SPLM and our colleague, the SPLM secretary-general, Pagan Amoum, should not buy it. As to the promise of Dr. Garang before his death to meet the Arab-Islamic segment represented by the Dr. Abdullah, which opposed SPLM and Dr. Garang, this is another poisoned chalice that should only be accepted when Dr. Abdulla and his group have shown some tangible good faith in the viability and the necessity of such dialogue.

I hope Dr. Abdullah has been carefully reading the political scene in the Sudan. The issue of unity of Sudan or its disintegration is not something that can be left to unseen power of God or to some clever craftiness Abdullah may be contemplating. It is my view that if the democratic secular forces, although non-existent at this moment, win the 2008 elections, the unity of the Sudan stands a chance in 2011. This scenario means that Sudanese politics would be devoid of religious, cultural and racial domination to an extend that southerners would not feel as second-class citizens in their own country. If the theocratic forces such as the Umma Party, the NIF (two branches), or the combination of both, win in 2008, then bye-bye the Sudan we all know.

In this last scenario, southern Sudanese will remember the words of its fallen hero and I quote: “I, Cdr. Dr. John Garang de Mabior, is delivering this message again and again, please pay close attention for you to understand it very clearly: I and those who joined me in the bush and fought for more than twenty years, have brought you the CPA in a golden plate. Our mission is accomplished. It is now your turn, especially those who did not have a chance to experience bush life. When time comes to vote at the referendum, it is your golden choice to determine your fate. Would you like to vote to be second-class citizens in your own country? It is absolutely your choice” (Rumbek, the 22^nd SPLM/A Anniversary, May 16, 2005).