Rally for Peace & Justice in Nuba Mountains, Sudan

Thursday, December 16: 1:00-4:00 PM, Lafayette Park, Washington, DC

 

 

Nuba Mountains Advocacy Group:

�The CPA Guarantors, including the U.S. government, must quadruple efforts to bring real peace to Sudan. They must ensure a free and fair Popular Consultation process for the people of Nuba Mountains.�

 

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended Africa�s longest civil war in hopes for peace throughout Sudan, guaranteed the people of Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State a Popular Consultation as �a democratic right and mechanism to ascertain the views of the people of the Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile States on the comprehensive agreement reached by the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People�s Liberation Movement.� The consultation was scheduled for �the beginning of the 4^th Year of the signing of the Agreement� (i.e. January 2009). The CPA stipulates that the people of Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State elect local parliament in their respective regions which would then establish �Assessment and Evaluation Commission� to assess the implementation of the protocols and whether the peace accord had met aspirations the people. The Commission would also ratify or rectify any short comings on implementation of the CPA regarding the two states.

 

But the people of Nuba Mountains have yet to exercise this democratic right. The regime of the National Congress Party (NCP), the Islamist ruling party in Khartoum has failed to implement the protocol of Nuba Mountains and has consistently violated the peace agreement. State election is a precondition for the Popular Consultation process. However, the NCP has sabotaged it. There have been estimates of over 100 violations to the protocol including the outrageous security violations, which threaten the livelihood of the civilians in the Nuba Mountains.

  

Reports indicate that Khartoum government has deployed some 45, 000 - 50,000 troops of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), equipped with over 200 tanks, across the state. The troops are stationed in schools, hospitals, and other civilian locations and in neighborhoods across the region. Further, the NCP has recruited and armed Popular Defense Forces (PDF), Arab militias which were used by the NCP in the region during the past war. Reports indicate that 20,000 armed militia are in the area. In addition, Khartoum has launched a new policy in the area calling Africans �Modern Southerners,� for political, economical and social oppression.

 

The people of Nuba Mountains across the United States and Canada will gather in the capital of the world�s most powerful nation to raise awareness and appeal to the world to help avert another human catastrophe in Nuba Mountains and help sustain peace for all parties in the region regardless of creed or ethnicity.  �We call upon the world�s compassionate people to join the people of Nuba Mountains and the rest of marginalized people of Sudan to rally for peace and justice in the Nuba Mountains and across the nation.