Arman: ‘SPLM-N will not participate in any dialogue with Sudan govt.’

The leader of the opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) has emphasised that the Movement will not participate in any political dialogue with the Sudanese government in Khartoum.

“Let this be clear to the regime,” said SPLM leader Yasir Armant in a comprehensive interview with Radio Dabanga. He stressed that the priority now is for food, and to stop the shelling of residents in the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, and Darfur. “Only then can we look at the political issues.”

He pointed out that they clarified their position to the Chairman of the African Union High Implementation Panel (AUHIP), Thabo Mbeki, who is currently visiting Khartoum by invitation of the Government.

He stressed that “Al Bashir’s time has come to an end with no future and the international community must accept the new reality of change imposed by the Sudanese people”.

PCP

In Khartoum, the Popular Congress Party (PCP) said that it will only continue with the National Dialogue and consider a part in the next government if the constitutional amendments concerning freedoms are adopted by Parliament before its annual three-month recess, which starts on 28 December.

In an interview with Radio Dabanga, PCP political secretary Kamal Omer Abdel Salam described the constitutional amendments being discussed by the National Assembly now as incomplete.

He stressed that the freedoms, powers of the security services, and independence of the judiciary, are pivotal and key points in the constitutional amendments.

He said “we will press all the way to present the constitutional amendments on freedoms before 28 December.

“The dialogue has no value without them and that the leadership of the PCP will meet to consider the continuation in the National Dialogue in the absence of the constitutional amendments on freedoms.

Kamal also has announced the PCP’s full solidarity with the activists, confiscated newspapers, and detainees, and called on the security apparatus to stop these practices which will distort the climate of the National Dialogue.

Dialogue Support Stream

The Dialogue Support Stream, one of the forces participating in the dialogue, has accused the National Congress of “searching for reasons to evade submission of the constitutional amendments on freedoms before the National Assembly and a retreat from the President's commitments to the implementation of the dialogue outcomes”.

In an interview with Radio Dabanga, Dr Ammar El Sajad of the Dialogue Support Stream has described the continuance of the opposition forces in dialogue in the present as a political suicide and a retreat from the freedoms values.

He told Radio Dabanga that the National Congress announced its intention to form a new government before January 10 without submitting the constitutional amendments on freedoms.

He said “forming a government without submitting the constitutional amendments constitutes the utmost violation and manipulation of the National Dialogue outputs, stripping them of meaning”.