SUDAN – Sudans Post

South Sudan urges international support for Sudanese peace agreement

September 22, 2020 BY NANCY ABDEL RAHMAN

South Sudan deputy minister of foreign affairs Deng Dau Deng [Photo by unknown]

JUBA – South Sudan’s government has urged international community to rally behind and support the Sudanese peace agreement set to be signed in Juba next week.

The call was made by the world’s youngest country’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Deng Dau Deng during a briefing for the diplomatic community on the status of the Sudanese peace deal in Juba Friday.

“The peace deal will be signed on Oct. 3 and this would form a very important message to our ambassadors in Juba and our friendly countries, for them to be able to invest in supporting the peace process in the Republic of Sudan,” Deng said.

Sudan is set to sign the deal next month in Khartoum.

“This is the right time. The peace implementation will require financial support and expertise to undertake rehabilitation, reconstruction of physical and social infrastructure damaged during the war,” he said.

The deal accords a lifetime opportunity to Sudanese people to put years of war behind them and embark on development while addressing the fundamental root causes of the conflict, he said.

Deputy Minister of Defense and Veteran Affairs Malek Ruben said the government and different groups agreed clearly on points of national interest.

“The parties considered to jointly agree on national issues that includes identity, public freedom, human rights, separating religion from state, constitution making process, distribution of power and wealth and social justice and equality,” he said.

South Sudan has offered to mediate between parties to the crisis since unrest led to the overthrow of longtime President Omar Bashir in April 2019.

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Leek community in Sudan elects new leader

September 18, 2020 BY NANCY ABDEL RAHMAN

Members of the Leek community in Sudan attending election on Friday, September 18, 2020 [Photo obtained by Sudans Post]

KHARTOUM – The Leek Community Association in Sudan has on Friday elected a new leader in an election described as “free and fair,” according to members of the community who attended the election.

Leek community Association in Sudan is a body established in the 1990s and its membership are the people of South Sudan’s Rubkona county of oil-rich Unity state and was established.

Speaking to Sudans Post this morning, a member of the community said Gattot Goyok was elected as the new leader of the community organization in Sudan succeeding outgoing chairman Sudan Pech Tot.

“On Friday, elections were conducted in Sudan and was won by Gattot Goyok. So Gattot is now our new chairman here in the Republic of Sudan,” the community member said on condition of anonymity.

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General Hemeti tells Tutkew Abyei referendum without Miseriya unacceptable

September 18, 2020 BY NANCY ABDEL RAHMAN

South Sudan presidential advisor on security Tut Gatluak Manimeh meeting General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo in Khartoum [Photo by Sudans Post]

KHARTOUM – The First Vice President of Sudan’s sovereign Council and commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo has reportedly told President Salva Kiir’s security advisor Tut Gatluak who is currently on a visit to Sudan that any future Abyei referendum without the participation of the Arab Miseriya tribe would not be acceptable.

Gatluak is currently in Sudan on an official visit to invite Sudanese leaders for the ceremony of the signing of the final Sudanese peace deal which is set for the first week of October in Juba where it was negotiated.

Speaking to Sudans Post on Friday night, a member of the South Sudan high-level delegation said the Daglo who is better known as Hemeti told Gatluak that Abyei referendum must include the Miseriya and any conduct of the 2005 peace provision without that would not be accepted by the Sudanese part.

“Yesterday, after we met al-Burhan, we went to meet General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. What he said when we raised the issue of Abyei, was that the Miseriya must be part of the Abyei referendum,” the member of the delegation said on condition of anonymity.

Abyei is a contested area between Sudan and South Sudan and a 2013 referendum conducted unilaterally by the Abyei residents of the nine Ngok chiefdom was declared null and void by both countries.

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Bashir regretted helping Kiir rig 2010 elections against Dr. Lam – documentary

September 18, 2020 BY STAFF WRITER

South Sudan President Salva Kiir, left, opposition leader Dr. Lam Akol, center, and former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, right [Photos via Getty Images]

KHARTOUM – Sudan’s former Islamist leader, Omar al-Bashir, opposed Dr. Lam Akol’s election bid for president of the government of Southern Sudan in 2010 and so worked to ensure President Kiir was elected with an aim to exploit the inadequate education of the South Sudanese leader, according to a new footage of a secret meeting broadcasted as a part of a TV documentary, “The Islamic Front: The Major Secrets” by Al Arabiya channel.

In the secret meeting of the National Islamic Front (NIF) held in Khartoum following the 2011 referendum, former President Omar al Bashir who came to power through a bloodless coup in 1989 said his government’s conviction, when they allowed President Kiir to rig elections in Southern Sudan in his favor in 2010, was that Dr. Lam Akol would not cooperate with them and would be hard to do business with.

Al-Bashir said his Islamist government was not in any position to accept that election for the President of the Government of Southern Sudan is won by someone rather than President Salva Kiir who was then his first deputy.

“Our conviction – despite Lam [Akol’s] relationship with us and their support for us – was that if Lam win election, he would not be able to govern South Sudan,” Al-Bashir said the meeting attended by senior members of the NIF and those working in his government.

“Secondly we would not be able to cooperate and do business with him. That’s why we decided to endorse Salva [Kiir] because we believed he was the only person we would be able to cooperate and do business with for the remaining part of the interim period,” he added.

Al-Bashir further highlighted in that meeting that Dr. Lam Akol who he said could not return to South Sudan would not be able to handle the oil-rich south asking at some point how he would government a country he couldn’t set foot in.

“Lam cannot even return to South Sudan, so how can he lead South Sudan?” he asked.

Destabilizing South Sudan

In a separate audio recorded following the 2012 Heglig crisis, Al-Bashir said Sudan’s Islamist government had no interest in the stability of South Sudan as well as in saving it from rebellions which rocked the country following the independence in 2011.

He said Sudan would work to ensure that the SPLM is removed from power in the South and vowed that such action was going to take place within a very short period of time.

“We don’t have any interest in saving the government of South Sudan [from rebels] and we will not work with the government of South Sudan unless the SPLM is gone,” he said.

“So, our [National Islamic Front] goal is to remove the SPLM in South Sudan. We will not discuss with them anything unless we are sure 100% that no aggression will come from South Sudan because any single barrel of crude oil exported from South Sudan, will be used to buy weapons. So, any single barrel of oil from South Sudan is a threat to our security,” he said.

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Sudan says it foiled ‘terror’ plot to blow up Khartoum

September 16, 2020 BY NANCY ABDEL RAHMAN

An aerial view shows the skyline of the Sudanese capital Khartoum. [Photo by AFP]

KHARTOUM – Security agencies in the Sudanese capital Khartoum dismantled a terrorist cell that had vast amounts of explosives which could threaten neighboring countries, said Sudan’s Attorney General on Wednesday.

The explosives seized from the terrorist cell were sufficient to blow up Khartoum, the attorney general said in a press conference, adding that the seized materials were similar to those that exploded in the port of Beirut in August.

Beirut’s port was devastated after 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate caught fire, causing a massive explosion that killed at least 190 people and injured thousands more.

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South Sudan delegation arrives in Khartoum to invite al-Burhan, Hamdok for peace signing ceremony

September 15, 2020 BY NANCY ABDEL RAHMAN

South Sudan delegation arriving at Khartoum airport [Photo via Facebook]

JUBA/KHARTOUM – A high-level South Sudan delegation has arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to invite the Sudanese leaders for the signing of the final Sudanese peace deal which is expected to be signed by the government and armed groups in Juba next month, a senior presidency official said this afternoon.

Earlier this month, the ruling Sudan coalition and a consortium of at least five rebel groups initialed an agreement in Juba under talks hosted by President Salva Kiir Mayardit of South Sudan.

“A team led by the Presidential Advisor on Security Affairs Honorable Tut Gatluak Manimeh has just touched down in the Sudanese capital Khartoum,” Peter Mayuk, a presidency official in Juba said.

“The team is taking President Salva Kiir’s official invitation to his Sudanese counterpart, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to attend the final signing of Sudanese peace on 3th October in Juba,” the official added.

The signing ceremony of the Sudanese peace agreement is expected to be attended by regional and some international leaders on October 3.

The delegation is led by Tut Gatluak, president Kiir’s security advisor and some senior government officials.

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SPLM-IO delegation meets Sudanese prime minister Abdalla Hamdok in Khartoum

September 14, 2020 BY NANCY ABDEL RAHMAN

SPLM-IO delegation meeting Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok in Khartoum [Photo by PM minister’s office]

KHARTOUM – A high-level delegation from South Sudan’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) has this afternoon met the Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok in his office in Khartoum, according to the prime minister’s office.

“The Prime Minister Dr. Abdallah Hamdok received today in his office a delegation from Sudans People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) led by Dr. Adam Tidjani Abdullah,” the statement by Hamdok’s office and seen by Sudans Post partly read.

The statement said the delegation conveyed to the Sudanese premier congratulatory message from South Sudan’s First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny who is also the SPLM-IO chairman on the occasion of signing of the preliminary Sudanese peace agreement in Juba between the government and opposition groups.

“The delegation congratulated the Prime Minister on the occasion of the initialing of the peace agreement between the transitional government and the Sudanese Revolutionary Front,” it added.

“The delegation conveyed to the Prime Minister the greetings of Dr. Riek Machar, First Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan, Chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (IO), wishing that peace prevail in all parts of Sudan and South Sudan,” the statement added.

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SPLM-IO diplomat comes to aid of former Sudanese army instructor living under inhuman conditions in Khartoum

September 14, 2020 BY STAFF WRITER

Former Sudanese army sergeant James Dingnyang Hoth, center, SPLM-IO ambassador to Egypt Gatkuoth Biel Nyang, left, and Sudanese army Brigadier in Khartoum [Photo courtesy]

KHARTOUM – A senior SPLM-IO diplomat has come to the aid of a former instructor for the Sudanese army who was facing uncertain future at a street in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the Sudans Post has learned.

Former Sudanese army Sergeant James Dingnyang Hoth’s life was at a crossroad when a “Good Samaritan,” the SPLM-IO ambassador to Egypt Gatkuoth Biel Nyang, found him on a Khartoum street during a rainy weather at a deplorable living conditions.

Dingnyang who is known to his former colleagues at the military college in Khartoum as James Daniel, joined the Sudanese army in the 1980s and left the service fourteen years later in the year 2000.

Since then, Dingnyang who never has his pensions remained in Khartoum and shifted to selling books at Comboni ground for many years until he encountered a paralysis in his left hand and leg due to poor living conditions.

In July, 10 days before the Adha Muslim feast, Amb. Gatkuoth came across a man suffering from paralysis and as the floods was about to struck Khartoum, the SPLM-IO diplomat decided to accord him an hotel room and took him to a hospital the following day.

“I am thank to God that he send him my way,” Dingnyang told Sudans Post in an exclusive interview with Sudans Post. “I am not sure of what would have happened to me but I thank God that I am to my normal life now though I remain concerned.”

Ambassador Gatkuoth said following a slight recovery, he decided to take him to the military college in Khartoum where he previously worked as a instructor. He said he was then welcomed by his former students currently with high ranks in the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF).

Dingnyang in a hospital with Gatkuoth Biel Nyang [Photo courtesy]

“Because of the situation that he is in, he still need help. I took him to the military college where he worked as instructor. He then met many of his former students who are high-ranking officers in the SAF now and he was welcomed,” Gatkuoth said.

The man in now living at a hotel room with Gatkuoth in Central Khartoum as he recovers from the paralysis in his hand and leg.

Dingnyang hails from Unity state’s Rubkona county and none of his family members contacted by Gatkuoth have shown up.

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Sudanese authorities release rebel commander arrested in February in Khartoum for buying army uniforms – RSF

September 12, 2020 BY NANCY ABDEL RAHMAN

South Sudan rebel officers arrested by the Sudanese security in Khartoum in February 2020 [Photo by RSF]

KHARTOUM – Sudanese security forces said on Saturday that they have released a South Sudan rebel commander who was arrested in the capital Khartoum in February this year for allegedly buying army’s uniform.

In February, Major General Sabit Kong Kuon along with three other junior officers, were arrested in Kalakala, a Khartoum suburb, after they were allegedly caught illegally buying military uniforms from members of the Sudanese army.

In a statement on February 3, the spokesman of the RSF, General Jamal Juma, said an investigation revealed that the military uniform were meant for rebel forces allied to General Thomas Cirilo Swaka in Upper Nile state.

Subsequent reports that the four men had been deported to South Sudan’s capital Juba turned out to be untrue.

In an exclusive interview with Sudans Post on Saturday, Juma said the three men were released in June and were no longer in the Sudanese jail. He said they were released due to their health situation which he said made them weak enough for COVID-19 infection.

“These officers were released in June because of their health situation. They were vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic and that is why they were released,” Juma during an exclusive interview with Sudans Post in Khartoum Saturday.

Juma further said “we could not hand them over to the government of the state of South Sudan because they may end up in another jail. because there is a peace process between the rebels in that country going on, we decided to hand them over to their commanders.”

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Sudanese parties to sign final peace deal next month – Tutkew

September 7, 2020 BY AGENCIES

Sudan’s Sovereign Council Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, and Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok lift copies of the peace agreement with the country’s rebel groups in Juba, South Sudan, August 31. [Photo by REUTERS]

JUBA – The Sudanese parties to the ongoing Juba-based talks will sign a final peace agreement in the South Sudanese on October 2, 2020, Presidential Advisor on Security and Chief Negotiator Tutkew Gatluak has said.

“The second of October is the date for the final signing of the peace agreement between the government and the ‘parties to the peace process,'” Tut Gatluak, head of the mediation team and South Sudan’s presidential adviser on security affairs, wrote on Twitter.

Sudanese authorities and leaders from the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), a coalition of rebel groups, initialed a historic peace agreement on August 31 in Juba aimed at ending nearly two decades of conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, particularly in western Darfur.

Established in 2011, the SRF brings together rebels from the war-ravaged western Darfur region, as well as the southern states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok signed a separate agreement in Ethiopia with a faction of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), which had refused to agree to the deal struck in Juba, officials on both sides said on Friday.

Reaching a peace accord with rebel groups has been a priority of Sudan’s transitional government, which came to power after the April 2019 ouster of long-time leader Omar al-Bashir following months of mass protests.

The deal covers key issues around security, land ownership, transitional justice, power sharing and the return of people who fled their homes because of fighting. It also provides for the dismantling of rebel forces and the integration of their fighters into the national army.

Fighting in Darfur alone left around 300,000 people dead after rebels took up arms in 2003. Conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile erupted in 2011 as South Sudan seceded from Sudan, resuming a war that had raged from 1983 to 2005.

Since October 2019, South Sudan has been mediating between the Sudanese government and the armed groups from Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions.

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