KHARTOUM (Halbeeg News) – A Sudanese rebel leader has returned home despite a 2014 death sentence given in absentia, saying he will stay even though Sudan’s military junta has asked him to leave.
Yasir Arman told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus that he is in Sudan to help resolve the ongoing standoff over who should lead Sudan’s transitional government for the next three years.
Arman, deputy chairman of a faction of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), flew into Khartoum on Saturday after more than 20 years of living in Kenya or in Sudan’s restive Blue Nile state and Nuba Mountains area, on the border with South Sudan.
He said the ruling military junta sent him a message Tuesday ordering him to leave, but Arman said he intends to stay, as Sudan is his country.
“This voice for peace and for a political settlement is not being heard by the [transitional] military council. That is regrettable because we need this new development in Sudan to take us into a comprehensive peaceful settlement,” he said.
Threats from junta
Arman first took up arms against Sudan’s government in 1986 with the rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, under the late John Garang.
After South Sudan won independence in 2011, he became involved in the rebellion against then-President Omar al-Bashir in the Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states.
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