Sudan opposition condemns arrest of its members

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) -- Sudan's opposition National Democratic Alliance on Monday criticized the arrest of seven of its members in Khartoum last week.

Security forces swooped on a house where the NDA secretariat inside Sudan was meeting a U.S. diplomat last Wednesday. The NDA members were detained and remain in custody. The diplomat, Glenn Warren, a political officer at the U.S. embassy, was expelled.

"Surely the arrest of the NDA secretariat inside Sudan casts a heavy shadow on the government's claims relating to political liberalization, as well as the professed desire to achieve a comprehensive settlement" the NDA said in a statement from its headquarters in the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

The Sudanese authorities have accused the NDA members and Warren of plotting an armed uprising, saying the group had a plan to support the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Organization, waging a 17-year-old autonomy struggle in the south.

The United States denied the accusations. "We utterly reject the assertion that our diplomat did anything improper or inappropriate," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said.

Washington sees Khartoum's action as a diplomatic reprisal for a recent unauthorized visit to rebel-held areas in the south by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice.

Sudan is due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections over nine days starting on Wednesday. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, whose 1989 military coup brought an Islamist government to power, is seeking a second five-year term.

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Sudan Ministry of External Relations
U.S. State Department
  • U.S. Dept. of State, 1999 Human Rights Report on Sudan
  • South Sudan Special Project
Amnesty International, 2000 Report on Sudan
Library of Congress, Country Study on Sudan
Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan
Foreign Policy In Focus
  • Sudan: Recasting U.S. Policy
South Sudanese Friends International

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