THE SUDAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT AND SUDAN LIBERATION ARMY (SLM/SLA
POLITICAL DECLARATION Introduction
Darfur had been an independent state from the sixteenth century to the second decade of the twentieth, when it was coercively annexed to the modern day Sudan. As an independent state, Darfur enjoyed worldwide recognition and had embassies in the capitals of the major empires of that time. If Sudan is seen as the microcosm of Africa, Darfur is the microcosm of Sudan. The peaceful coexistence between its African and Arab tribes, between the sedentary populations and the nomadic ones and between emigrants from its eastern and western neighbors and indigenous groups was the source of its stabilit y, prosperity and strength.
However, successive post-independence regimes in Khartoum, both civilian and military, have introduced and systematically adhered to the policies of marginalization, racial discrimination, exclusion, exploitation and divisiveness. Darfur was made and continues to be a reservoir of cheap labor for central Sudan’s agricultural and industrial projects, the major source of lower-ranking soldiers thrown into the fray of the supremacist war waged by Khartoum against south Sudan, Nuba, Fung, Beja, Rashaida and other marginalized areas, and a fair game for central Sudan’s political parties and elite seeking to field non-indigenous parliamentary candidates in safe seats.
The monopolization of power and wealth led to the institutionalization of the hegemonic policies of riverain Sudan’s dominating establishment. These were further entrenched through the fueling of ethnic and tribal wars, with the governments in Khartoum providing military assistance to some Arab tribes and organizations to fight against their non-Arab brethren, with whom they have peacefully co-existed for centuries. Rapid desertification, famines and cross-border population movements from neighboring countries into Darfur have provided Khartoum’s regimes with additional ammunition to further its divisive policies between Arab and non-Arabs and sedentary and nomadic groups. These evil policies reached their zenith on the hands of the NIF junta that usurped power in June 1989. The present Khartoum junta has even created a Bantustan-type department of tribal affairs whose mission is to oversee the implementation of Khartoum’s divide and rule schemes and channel government assistance to its local allies. These policies have resulted in massive human rights violations amounting to ethnic cleansing and genocide in certain areas of all the three states of Darfur.
The brutal oppression, ethnic cleansing and genocide sponsored by the Khartoum Government left the people of Darfur with no other option but to resort to popular political and military resistance for purposes of survival. This popular resistance has now coalesced into a political movement known as the Sudan Liberation Movement and its military wing, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLM/SLA), which we are happy to announce today to the Sudanese people and to the world at large.
The Objective of SLM/A
Although the SLM/A has originated from Darfur as a matter of necessity in response to the brutal genocidal policies of the NIF Government in that region, we want to affirm and underline that the SLM/A is a national movement that aims along with other like-minded political groups to address and solve the fundamental problems of all of Sudan. The objective of SLM/A is to create a united democratic Sudan on a new basis of equality, complete restructuring and devolution of power, even development, cultural and political pluralism and moral and material prosperity for all Sudanese.
SLM/A Position on the Unity of Sudan
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army is of the view that Sudan’s unity is of paramount importance, but it should not be maintained and cannot be viable unless it is based on justice and equality for all the Sudanese peoples. Sudan’s unity must be anchored on a new basis that is predicated on full acknowledgement of Sudan’s ethnic, cultural, social and political diversity. Viable unity must therefore ultimately be based on the right of self-determination and the free will of the various peoples of Sudan. The fundamental imperatives of a viable unity are an economy and political system that address the uneven developmen t and marginalization that have plagued the country since independence, so that the interests of the marginalized majority are adequately catered for and they are brought to the same level of development of the ruling minority. The SLM/A shall work with all political forces that ascribe to this view.
SLM/A Position on Human Rights and Democracy
The SLM/A shall struggle for the full realization and respect for human rights and democratic pluralism in accordance with international standards leading to equal development and the eradication of political and economic marginalization.
SLM/A Position on System of Governance
The SLM/A shall struggle to achieve a decentralized form of governance based on the right of Sudan’s different regions to govern themselves autonomously through a federal or confederal system. At the same time the Central Government must be completely restructured and recast so that it adequately reflects Sudan’s rich diversity as represented by the component regions, which are its stakeholders.
SLM/A Position on the Questions of Identity, Culture, Power and Wealth
The SLM/A shall struggle to realize a new system of rule that fully respects the cultural diversity in the Sudan and creates new democratic conditions for cultural dialogue and cross-fertilization generating a new view of the Sudanese identity based on Sudanism. Sudanism will provide the Sudanese with the necessary space, regardless of whether they are Arabs or Africans, Christians or Muslims, Westerners or Easterners, Southerners or Northerners to achieve greater cohesiveness on the basis of the simple fact of being Sudanese. This would require restructuring of power and an equal and equitable distribution of both power and wealth in all their dimensions.
SLM/A Position on Religion
Religion is a source of spiritual and moral inspiration for our peoples that serves the needs of our peoples and the entire humankind in their pursuit of peaceful interaction and greater moral and spiritual ascendancy. The state machinery belongs to all Sudanese regardless of their religious or spiritual values and its neutrality must be preserved. Religion and politics belong to two different domains and must be kept in their respective domain, with religion belonging to the personal domain and the state in the public domain, that is, religion belongs to the individual and the state belongs to all of us. In this way religion cannot become a cause of conflict among citizens of the same country.
SLM/A Position on Armed Struggle and Sudanese Opposition Armed Groups
Armed struggle is one of our means to achieve our legitimate objectives. The SLM/A shall strive to achieve a common vision and programme of action and unity among Sudan’s different opposition armed groups as well as with non-armed political groups with which it shares the same political objectives.
SLM/A Position Regarding Arab Tribes and Groups in Darfur
The Arab tribes and groups are an integral and indivisible component of Darfur social fabric who have been equally marginalized and deprived of their rights to development and genuine political participation. SLM/A firmly opposes and struggles against the Khartoum government’s policies of using some Arab tribes and organization such as the Arab Alliance and Quresh to achieve its hegemonic devices that are detrimental both to Arabs and non-Arabs. We call upon all fellow citizens of Darfur from Arab background to join the struggle against Khartoum and its divisive policies, the restoration of our traditional and time-honored peaceful coexistence and the eradication of marginalization. The real interests of the Arab tribes of Darfur are with the SLM/A and Darfur not with the various oppressive and transient governments of Khartoum.
SLM/A Position on Peaceful Solution to the Sudanese Problem
Negotiation for the peaceful resolution of Sudan’s conflict is one of our means of struggle to achieve our objective provided that it should be aimed at attaining a comprehensive and just peace. Negotiations must be conducted in good faith and the government must desist from its practices that seek to divide, co-opt and destroy opposition forces.
SLM/A Position Regarding the NDA and Other Politica
SLM/A shall struggle to achieve understanding l Forcesand common ground with the NDA and other political forces in order to remove the NIF’s dictatorial regime and establish a democratic system based on a new political dispensation of freedom, justice, respect for human rights and equality for all Sudanese. The SLM/A will therefore reach out to establish contact and dialogue with the NDA and other political forces.
SLM/A Appeal for Support
We appeal to the sons and daughters of Darfur, both inside the Sudan and in the Diaspora, and to the Sudanese people in general, to give political an moral support to the SLM/A, and despite their poverty and suffering to make financial and material contributions to the SLM/A to enable it achieve the objective of a free and democratic New Sudan. We appeal to our people in the rural areas, both agriculturalists and pastoral nomads to rally behind the SLM/A and give the Movement their full political and material support. We appeal to our brothers in the regime’s armed forces to abandon the regime and join us, or if it is not possible to join us, not to fight us. We appeal to those in various government departments to find ways of supporting the SLM/A. We appeal to our intellectuals to use their pens and pocke ts to support the SLM/A. We appeal to businessmen to make financial donations. We appeal to our women to organize and find ways to support the SLM/A. We appeal to our youth to join the SLA and contribute their generation’s share to rid our people of this dictatorship and establish a New Sudan that belongs equally to all its citizens.
SLM/A Position Regarding Neighboring Countries and International Community
The SLM/A shall strive to build relations of friendship and partnership with the neighboring countries, especially the Republic of Chad, the Great Libyan Jamahiriya, Egypt and the Central African Republic, as well as all of Sudan’s other neighbours. The SLM/A shall seek to create friendly relationships with the international community that will enhance international peace and stability in the world away from Khartoum’s policies that have contributed to regional and international instability through its direct involvement in promotion of local, regional and international terrorism.
SLM/A Appeal for Humanitarian Assistance for Darfur
Finally, on behalf of the people of Darfur, we appeal to the international community to assist the people of Darfur with humanitarian relief to address and ameliorate the serious and deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Region. Ethnic cleansing and other gross acts of genocide sponsored by the Khartoum regime have caused massive displacement and suffering in all the three states of Darfur. This has been further compounded by draught and desertification. The population is in dire need of food, human medicine, animal drugs and other non-food services.
A.A. Ezaldeen
General Secretary –UK Office
Tel: 0044 79600 95 234E-mail: webmaster@sudanslm.net
POLITICAL DECLARATION Introduction
Darfur had been an independent state from the sixteenth century to the second decade of the twentieth, when it was coercively annexed to the modern day Sudan. As an independent state, Darfur enjoyed worldwide recognition and had embassies in the capitals of the major empires of that time. If Sudan is seen as the microcosm of Africa, Darfur is the microcosm of Sudan. The peaceful coexistence between its African and Arab tribes, between the sedentary populations and the nomadic ones and between emigrants from its eastern and western neighbors and indigenous groups was the source of its stabilit y, prosperity and strength.
However, successive post-independence regimes in Khartoum, both civilian and military, have introduced and systematically adhered to the policies of marginalization, racial discrimination, exclusion, exploitation and divisiveness. Darfur was made and continues to be a reservoir of cheap labor for central Sudan’s agricultural and industrial projects, the major source of lower-ranking soldiers thrown into the fray of the supremacist war waged by Khartoum against south Sudan, Nuba, Fung, Beja, Rashaida and other marginalized areas, and a fair game for central Sudan’s political parties and elite seeking to field non-indigenous parliamentary candidates in safe seats.
The monopolization of power and wealth led to the institutionalization of the hegemonic policies of riverain Sudan’s dominating establishment. These were further entrenched through the fueling of ethnic and tribal wars, with the governments in Khartoum providing military assistance to some Arab tribes and organizations to fight against their non-Arab brethren, with whom they have peacefully co-existed for centuries. Rapid desertification, famines and cross-border population movements from neighboring countries into Darfur have provided Khartoum’s regimes with additional ammunition to further its divisive policies between Arab and non-Arabs and sedentary and nomadic groups. These evil policies reached their zenith on the hands of the NIF junta that usurped power in June 1989. The present Khartoum junta has even created a Bantustan-type department of tribal affairs whose mission is to oversee the implementation of Khartoum’s divide and rule schemes and channel government assistance to its local allies. These policies have resulted in massive human rights violations amounting to ethnic cleansing and genocide in certain areas of all the three states of Darfur.
The brutal oppression, ethnic cleansing and genocide sponsored by the Khartoum Government left the people of Darfur with no other option but to resort to popular political and military resistance for purposes of survival. This popular resistance has now coalesced into a political movement known as the Sudan Liberation Movement and its military wing, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLM/SLA), which we are happy to announce today to the Sudanese people and to the world at large.
The Objective of SLM/A
Although the SLM/A has originated from Darfur as a matter of necessity in response to the brutal genocidal policies of the NIF Government in that region, we want to affirm and underline that the SLM/A is a national movement that aims along with other like-minded political groups to address and solve the fundamental problems of all of Sudan. The objective of SLM/A is to create a united democratic Sudan on a new basis of equality, complete restructuring and devolution of power, even development, cultural and political pluralism and moral and material prosperity for all Sudanese.
SLM/A Position on the Unity of Sudan
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army is of the view that Sudan’s unity is of paramount importance, but it should not be maintained and cannot be viable unless it is based on justice and equality for all the Sudanese peoples. Sudan’s unity must be anchored on a new basis that is predicated on full acknowledgement of Sudan’s ethnic, cultural, social and political diversity. Viable unity must therefore ultimately be based on the right of self-determination and the free will of the various peoples of Sudan. The fundamental imperatives of a viable unity are an economy and political system that address the uneven developmen t and marginalization that have plagued the country since independence, so that the interests of the marginalized majority are adequately catered for and they are brought to the same level of development of the ruling minority. The SLM/A shall work with all political forces that ascribe to this view.
SLM/A Position on Human Rights and Democracy
The SLM/A shall struggle for the full realization and respect for human rights and democratic pluralism in accordance with international standards leading to equal development and the eradication of political and economic marginalization.
SLM/A Position on System of Governance
The SLM/A shall struggle to achieve a decentralized form of governance based on the right of Sudan’s different regions to govern themselves autonomously through a federal or confederal system. At the same time the Central Government must be completely restructured and recast so that it adequately reflects Sudan’s rich diversity as represented by the component regions, which are its stakeholders.
SLM/A Position on the Questions of Identity, Culture, Power and Wealth
The SLM/A shall struggle to realize a new system of rule that fully respects the cultural diversity in the Sudan and creates new democratic conditions for cultural dialogue and cross-fertilization generating a new view of the Sudanese identity based on Sudanism. Sudanism will provide the Sudanese with the necessary space, regardless of whether they are Arabs or Africans, Christians or Muslims, Westerners or Easterners, Southerners or Northerners to achieve greater cohesiveness on the basis of the simple fact of being Sudanese. This would require restructuring of power and an equal and equitable distribution of both power and wealth in all their dimensions.
SLM/A Position on Religion
Religion is a source of spiritual and moral inspiration for our peoples that serves the needs of our peoples and the entire humankind in their pursuit of peaceful interaction and greater moral and spiritual ascendancy. The state machinery belongs to all Sudanese regardless of their religious or spiritual values and its neutrality must be preserved. Religion and politics belong to two different domains and must be kept in their respective domain, with religion belonging to the personal domain and the state in the public domain, that is, religion belongs to the individual and the state belongs to all of us. In this way religion cannot become a cause of conflict among citizens of the same country.
SLM/A Position on Armed Struggle and Sudanese Opposition Armed Groups
Armed struggle is one of our means to achieve our legitimate objectives. The SLM/A shall strive to achieve a common vision and programme of action and unity among Sudan’s different opposition armed groups as well as with non-armed political groups with which it shares the same political objectives.
SLM/A Position Regarding Arab Tribes and Groups in Darfur
The Arab tribes and groups are an integral and indivisible component of Darfur social fabric who have been equally marginalized and deprived of their rights to development and genuine political participation. SLM/A firmly opposes and struggles against the Khartoum government’s policies of using some Arab tribes and organization such as the Arab Alliance and Quresh to achieve its hegemonic devices that are detrimental both to Arabs and non-Arabs. We call upon all fellow citizens of Darfur from Arab background to join the struggle against Khartoum and its divisive policies, the restoration of our traditional and time-honored peaceful coexistence and the eradication of marginalization. The real interests of the Arab tribes of Darfur are with the SLM/A and Darfur not with the various oppressive and transient governments of Khartoum.
SLM/A Position on Peaceful Solution to the Sudanese Problem
Negotiation for the peaceful resolution of Sudan’s conflict is one of our means of struggle to achieve our objective provided that it should be aimed at attaining a comprehensive and just peace. Negotiations must be conducted in good faith and the government must desist from its practices that seek to divide, co-opt and destroy opposition forces.
SLM/A Position Regarding the NDA and Other Politica
SLM/A shall struggle to achieve understanding l Forcesand common ground with the NDA and other political forces in order to remove the NIF’s dictatorial regime and establish a democratic system based on a new political dispensation of freedom, justice, respect for human rights and equality for all Sudanese. The SLM/A will therefore reach out to establish contact and dialogue with the NDA and other political forces.
SLM/A Appeal for Support
We appeal to the sons and daughters of Darfur, both inside the Sudan and in the Diaspora, and to the Sudanese people in general, to give political an moral support to the SLM/A, and despite their poverty and suffering to make financial and material contributions to the SLM/A to enable it achieve the objective of a free and democratic New Sudan. We appeal to our people in the rural areas, both agriculturalists and pastoral nomads to rally behind the SLM/A and give the Movement their full political and material support. We appeal to our brothers in the regime’s armed forces to abandon the regime and join us, or if it is not possible to join us, not to fight us. We appeal to those in various government departments to find ways of supporting the SLM/A. We appeal to our intellectuals to use their pens and pocke ts to support the SLM/A. We appeal to businessmen to make financial donations. We appeal to our women to organize and find ways to support the SLM/A. We appeal to our youth to join the SLA and contribute their generation’s share to rid our people of this dictatorship and establish a New Sudan that belongs equally to all its citizens.
SLM/A Position Regarding Neighboring Countries and International Community
The SLM/A shall strive to build relations of friendship and partnership with the neighboring countries, especially the Republic of Chad, the Great Libyan Jamahiriya, Egypt and the Central African Republic, as well as all of Sudan’s other neighbours. The SLM/A shall seek to create friendly relationships with the international community that will enhance international peace and stability in the world away from Khartoum’s policies that have contributed to regional and international instability through its direct involvement in promotion of local, regional and international terrorism.
SLM/A Appeal for Humanitarian Assistance for Darfur
Finally, on behalf of the people of Darfur, we appeal to the international community to assist the people of Darfur with humanitarian relief to address and ameliorate the serious and deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Region. Ethnic cleansing and other gross acts of genocide sponsored by the Khartoum regime have caused massive displacement and suffering in all the three states of Darfur. This has been further compounded by draught and desertification. The population is in dire need of food, human medicine, animal drugs and other non-food services.
A.A. Ezaldeen
General Secretary –UK Office
Tel: 0044 79600 95 234E-mail: webmaster@sudanslm.net
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