KHARTOUM (AFP)-Members of Sudan's opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) inside the country have pledged unity, despite rifts in the NDA abroad, and warned of resorting to a popular uprising.
The "home NDA" gave a press briefing Sunday, telling reporters they sought a political settlement to the country's civil war but would opt for upheaval against President Omar al-Bashir’s regime if this could not be achieved.
The coalition said that it would "maintain a unified political action, irrespective of the differences among the NDA rank abroad," the independent Al-Ayam daily reported.
The home NDA groups the opposition Umma party with the Democratic Unionist, Communist, Arab Baathist and Union of Sudanese African Parties, as well as the trades unions.
All were represented by a united delegation at a congress earlier this month of the NDA in exile, held in Asmara, Eritrea, where Umma split from the rest of the movement, in the culmination of a crisis triggered when former prime minister Sadek al-Mahdi began talks with the regime last December.
The moderate Muslim Umma movement, headed by Mahdi, had led a government coalition, which was ousted in a June 1989 coup, backed by Islamic hardliners, which brought General Bashir to power.
Al-Ayam cited a statement read Sunday by Umma Party representative Abdel Rahman Nugdalla on behalf of the home NDA leadership, defining the objectives of this group, which included bringing Umma back into the alliance.
Nugdalla said the party was seeking to unify the NDA in exile and to rally people around a political settlement bid, pressing the government for measures conducive to national dialogue with the opposition.
"If this political settlement fails, our final course of action will be a popular upheaval," the home NDA warned.
Successive governments in Khartoum have already been at war since 1983 with the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which seeks to end northern domination of the mainly animist and Christian south. The SPLA has joined the northern opposition in the NDA.
The conflict's ethnic and religious dimensions are compounded by economic factors such as the oil wealth in the south of Africa's largest country.
The NDA has demanded the abrogation of all laws restricting freedoms and the lifting of a state of emergency imposed by the regime.
Nugdalla, leader of the home NDA secretariat, advised all its factions, including his own Umma Party, to avoid "speedy steps" for reconciliation if the government itself failed to set the stage for a national dialogue.
"The Umma Party leaders (abroad) should be aware that if they return home before conditions for dialogue are fulfilled, they are going to face the laws which restrict freedoms," said Nugdalla, citing National Security and Public Order laws.
"We are not going to compromise about the conditions we have set for dialogue because there is no trust between us and the regime," said Nugdalla, adding, "the only guarantee is the abrogation of laws restricting political, trade unionist, publishing and association freedoms."
Nugdalla conceded that "relative progress" has been achieved with regards to political freedom. He said that in the past, security forces would have broken up the press briefing he was holding with other home NDA officials. However, he added, such tolerance would be "subject to the government's desire so long as the freedom-restricting laws are in existence".
