ADDRESS TO THE SECOND CONGRESS OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (NDA) BY DR. JOHN GARANG de MABI

01:55 AM Feb, 12 2016

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ADDRESS TO THE SECOND CONGRESS OF THE
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (NDA)
BY DR. JOHN GARANG de MABIOR
(CHAIRMAN AND C-IN-C, SPLM/SPLA and CHAIRMAN
OF THE UNIFIED MILITARY COMMAND, NDA)
(Massawa, Eritrea: September 9, 2000)
1. OPENING
Your Excellency: Molana Mohammed Osman al Mirghani, Chairman, NDA:
Your Excellencies: (Uztaz) Al-Amin Mohamed Said, (Uztaz) Yamane Gabreab, (Uztaz) Abdalla Jabir of the leadership of the People’s Front for Justice and Democracy.
Distinguished Guests: especially the ambassadors of Egypt and Libya.
Fellow delegates to the Second Congress of the NDA.
2. SALUTE TO THE HEROES AND MARTYRS
I would like to begin by saluting the memory and honour of all our heroes and martyrs, who have fallen in the struggle for Sudanese dignity before and after independence and throughout our history and now in the struggle for the New Sudan, of democracy, freedom, justice, human rights, and prosperity for all Sudanese. I salute these heroes and martyrs as a reminder that these heroes did not die in vain. The legacy and spirit of their struggle will always guide us and all generations to come toward a better and ever better Sudan .... (I therefore ask you to stand up to observe a one minute of silence in memory and honour of our martyrs.
3. OTHER GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS
(a)I would also like to salute and thank the government, party and people of Eritrea through their representatives here for their principled and historical solidarity with the Sudanese people.
(b)I would also like on this occasion to greet and salute the Chairman of the NDA for his wise leadership of the NDA over the last five years. I greet and salute you fellow delegates to the Second NDA Congress, leaders of the various NDA parties and movements and Trade Unions and especially the NDA delegation from Khartoum.
(c)I would like to pay special compliments to the international community for their concern and solidarity with the Sudanese people and their just cause for peace and stability, especially the countries of the IGAD initiative, the countries of the IGAD Partners Forum (IPD) and to the countries of the Joint-Initiative (Egypt and Libya), and to the entire international community who support the search for a just peace in the Sudan.
(d)I take the opportunity to greet all NDA and SPLA freedom fighters in all the military fronts, and to greet the forces of the Intifadha and all the Sudanese people on the occasion of this historic Second Congress of NDA. I would like to assure the Sudanese people that the NDA will not betray them. The NDA shall not let them down in their just struggle for freedom, justice, democracy and unity on a new basis, which we have called “the New Sudan��.
(e)I also take this opportunity to salute and express my solidarity with the Sudanese Woman and Youth. Women are the “marginalized of the marginalzed��. Women must be accorded full and equal rights. We condemn the recent indignity of the regime’s decree barring women from public work places as inhuman and deprivation of their rights and in some cases of livelihood. The youth are being sacrificed by the regime in their so-called “Jihad��. Hassen al-Turabi has said recently that after their split with Beshir the “Jihad�� has become illegitimate,and that there is no longer guarantee that whoever dies after this in the war will go to heaven. I therefore call on the youth not to be used as fodder for the war.
4.Fellow delegates, the NDA is the greatest achievement of the Sudanese people in their struggle for a just peace and a qualified unity. The NDA brings together different parts of the Sudan. This experience is the first of its kind in the modern history of our country. There are people who preach a very wrong theology that the Sudan is threatened with disintegration. They do not see the fundamental changes that are taking place. Instead, I see the Sudan coming together for the first time. Just look at yourselves in this Congress of the NDA, this is the Sudan. The NIF is pulling the country apart, while the NDA is bringing the Sudanese together. This coming together of the Sudanese people came at a time when the world and the big empires are falling apart, e.g., the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, etc. The Sudanese people are coming together in search of a New Sudan and just peace. This Sudanese coming together is the credit of the NDA, and this is why I said that the NDA is the greatest achievement of the Sudanese, while the NIF is its greatest disgrace.
5.The basic problems of the Sudan is that after independence there has really never been a national project, that included all the parameters of the Sudan, which could unite the different groups and nationalities. The successive governments only assumed unity and tried to base that unity on two parameter. Arabism and Islamism. We are not against Islam (there are many Muslims in the SPLM/SPLA) nor are we against Arabs (we have Arab nationalities in our Movement). However, Sudan must evolve a commnality that gives effective expression to its all its diversities. This is what we are trying to achieve in the NDA: this is the meaning of the New Sudan, and that is why said that the NDA is the greatest achievement of the Sudanese people, as this is the only way towards true unity.
6.Fellow delegates. Despite the understandable difficulties, the NDA and the majority of its forces have stuck together under the wise leadership of Moulana Mohammed Osman Mirghani, who really deserves a vote of thanks from this congress.
7.As you will recall the NDA was established on October 1989. However, the NDA took its present shape in June 1995 at its First Congress when the NDA was transformed from just a name to real and functioning alliance. 1995 was therefore a watershed for the NDA. But let us b objective and realistic. Although, a watershed, the NDA we formed in 1995 was really much more an arithmetic sum of its component parts than an organic alliance. This Congress has a challenge and the task to take the NDA to a new threshold, which will take the NDA from the arithmetic sum of 1995 to an organic alliance, that will effectively lead the Sudanese people now in the struggle for the New Sudan and during the subsequent phase of reconstruction and development. We want to achieve in this Congress and NDA that is greater than its component parts and in which it’s individual members as they strengthen themselves and benefit from it, they also strengthen the Alliance.
8.Fellow delegates, this Congress should make it clear to our friends and enemies alike, that the NDA is an organization of peace and unity, on a new basis. By its very nature, composition and programmes, the NDA is the only viable organization in our country, which could end the war and ursher the country in an era of peace and stability. I ask you, which other political organization can bring peace and unity to the Sudan؟ The NIF is a party of Jihad and war, how can it possibly bring peace and unity؟ The NIF talks about mobilizing an army of one million and recently Omer Beshir upgraded this to an army of six million, to fight whom ؟ The NIF is based on a strange philosophy of self-destruction of some Sudanese communities being mobilized to fight other Sudanese communities. The NIF is not qualified by its very nature to bring peace and unity to the Sudan. Only the NDA, by the NDA, by its very nature is qualified to end the war and bring peace and unity to the Sudan. This is why we chose the theme for this Second Congress to be “Towards ending the war and building the New Sudan��. In this context the NDA is ever ready for a comprehensive negotiated and peaceful settlement.
9.Fellow delegates, in this conference we must re-affirm and re-commit ourselves to the central objective of the NDA, which is to end the war y ushering the country in the era of the New Sudan. This means that the NDA must reaffirm and recommit itself to all the means of struggle, which include the Intifadha, the armed struggle and comprehensive negotiated and peaceful settlement. In this connection, I want to underline that a negotiated and peaceful settlement must be based on a just peace and volun5tary unity. It must be a historical settlement that recognizes and is bas3ed on the realities of our country. I also want to underline that a comprehensive negotiated and peaceful settlement could only be reached simultaneously with the other forms of struggle, that is, the Intifadha (the Uprising) and the armed struggle, not on its own with a dictatorial and theocratic regime. We have seven Fronts; six of them are for armed struggle. The seventh Front, which is the biggest of all the Fronts, is the Front of the Intifadha. The six Fronts must be correctly coordinated with the Intifadha to enable our masses to brake the siege of the NIF, and for the Intifadha to take off and for the results of the Intifadha to be guaranteed.
10.The central and immediate objective of the Intifadha (Uprising) this time should be ending the war and bu9ilding the New Sudan, so that the Intifadha does not repeat the vicious circle of October 1964 and April 1985. This is the only way to achieve true unity, a just peace and democracy for our country.
11.fellow delegates, there is a great need for developing the NDA into a broad Alliance (or Front) that will continue to lead the Sudan after the Transitional Period into the era of stability, democracy and unity on a new basis. The NDA should not be seen as a tactical alliance that ends in the post NIF period. In fact, it is the continuation of the NDA as the Movement for the New Sudan that will guarantee the unity of our country (on a new basis ) and sustain a viable democracy in the period of peace, reconstruction and development. In this context, in order for the Movement to contribute effectively to a sustained democracy, the SPLM will work with the other NDA forces to widen the margin of democracy that has been won recently through our struggle. As came in my speech last March, the SPLM will work in Khartoum and other cities as a political Movement and like other members of the NDA.
12. The philosophy of the Transitional Period should be based on the objective of moving Sudan from the old days of division and war to a new era of the New Sudan that is based on equality and justice, and only the NDA can achieve and guarantee this outcome.
13.This congress should widen the participation of the Sudanese people in the affairs of the NDA. The Sudanese people should be the real owners of the NDA: they must be effective stakeholders in the NDA. Indeed, the NDA should be built on the solid contribution and support of the Sudanese people, inside the country, in the Liberated areas and in Diaspora. The Sudanese in Diaspora have a special role to play in providing political, intellectual and material support to the NDA, and are therefore called upon to participate effectively in the building of the NDA and in the liberation struggle.
14.Sudan is a country of diversity and the government is trying to use this diversity for agitation on religious and ethnic lines and playing the different religious groups and nationalities against each other. I appeal to our masses to unite and to stick together in their struggle for equality and peace especially in the integration zones, and I make a special call for the Misseriya, Rizagat and Hawazima tribes of Southern Kordofan and Darfur that the government in their search to cover their acute shortage of manpower, they are trying to use them in their dirty programs of Jihad and war. I want to assure them that the SPLM policy in these areas should remain as areas of integration (Tamazuj) rather than areas of contact (Tamass). The resources whether, water or grazing. Should be for all the nationalities in the area, which have historically over the years shared these resources. These Misseriya, Rizegat and Haawazima are all marginalized and oppressed as their brothers and sisters in the Nuer, Dinka and Nuba nationalities. All of them are in need of services, development and restructuring of power and a correct distribution of wealth. Similarly, I appeal to the different tribes in Darfur to stop fighting each other as Arabs and Zurga and to direct their anger to the central government, which is the cause of their suffering.
15.regarding the structure of the NDA, this needs to be revitalized to that it is based on a problem-solving approach. We should not shy away from criticizing the whole NDA experience over the last five years, as well as accepting with tolerance the constructive criticism of others. This is the way to move forward organizationally, and thus speed up the achievement of our objectives.
16.Before, I end my remarks, I would like to appeal to our brothers and sisters in the Umma Party to Re-evaluate the political situation in our country, convince themselves of the viability of the NDA and reconsider their decision to freeze their membership in the NDA and reapply. Their natural place, as opposition, is in the NDA and nowhere else. The NDA is the right place for the Umma party to contribute positively to realizing true democracy, a just peace and the correct unity of our country.
17.Finally, I urge that after this Congress the NDA should emerge united, organic and strong. I want to assure this Congress and the Sudanese people that victory for the NDA and the Sudanese people is certain. How certain؟ By activating all the six fronts of the armed struggle at the same time with the Intifadha in Khartoum and other cities, I am sure that peace can be achieved in our country sooner that later. I am confident that that this Congress will resolve all the issues in the interests of the Sudanese people to achieve true democracy, a just peace and the New Sudan, and thus contribute to peace and stability in the region. Thank your very much.

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