Blue Nile, Darfur and South Kordofan should be negotiated in one forum - SPLM-N says

Khartoum
November 23, 2011 (Sudan Tribune)

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement - North (SPLM-North) told the African Union mediation that any future peace process with the Sudanese government should be designed for a comprehensive solution to the ongoing conflicts in Blue Nile, Darfur and South Kordofan.

A SPLM-N delegation led by its chairman Malik Agar met Wednesday in the Ethiopian capital with the members of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan headed by Thabo Mbeki to brief them about the recent alliance with Darfur rebel groups and their position on the ongoing conflict in the three regions of Blue Nile, Darfur and South Kordofan.

"A lasting and just solution for the conflicts in the three regions would only be based on a comprehensive perspective. The source of conflicts in Blue Nile, Darfur and South Kordofan and other regions lies in Khartoum wrong policies," said SPLM-N Secretary General Yasir Arman in a statement released after the meeting.

Therefore any settlement must address the roots of the crisis, through a comprehensive solution including all the political forces, said Arman who warned against partial solutions sealed separately between the government and the rebel groups.

Arman statements echoed a call addressed yesterday to President Barak Obama by 63 US Congressmen urging him to work for a comprehensive solution for the conflicts in the western and southern Sudan regions. The lawmakers disapproved implicitly the current policy implemented by his special envoy Princeton Lyman who supports separated processes with the Darfur groups and the SPLM-N.

Khartoum says opposed to any new peace process with the rebel groups. Sudanese officials said the Doha process was the last forum for a negotiated solution with the armed groups.

They also asserted that any rebel movement willing to join efforts for peace in western Sudan should endorse the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur and negotiate only its political participation and the integration of its combatants.

With the regard to the SPLM-N, the government says talks should be inside Sudan on the implementation of the protocol dedicated to the two regions in a peace deal signed in 2005 with the former rebel SPLM before the secession of South Sudan.

Last July President Omer al-Bashir rejected a framework agreement for peace talks with the SPLM-N saying they should lay down weapons and negotiate directly with the government in Khartoum without mediator.

Arman went further to explain the SPLM-N’s vision for the after negotiated settlement, saying the elaboration of a new Sudanese constitution should begin after the end of war in the country. He added it also should be undertaken under a transitional government agreed by the political parties, without elaborating on these forces.

The constitutional conference must include all the political forces and civil society groups to decide "How to govern Sudan? Not who rules Sudan", Arman further said.

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