Senior SPLM official from the Nuba Mountains, Ismail Khamis Jallab, says 'the Nuba people in the SPLM will remain in the SPLM forever'

Today, the website of Sudan Radio Service (SRS) is still having technical difficulties. At the moment its news pages and archives are blank, Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 11:22 AM GMT UK.  Here is a news report by SRS, received by email from SRS.  Note that it quotes Ismail Khamis Jallab as saying that the Nuba people in the SPLM will remain in the SPLM forever and that there is no room for talk about Nuba people being marginalised in the SPLM.  Copy of the report, from Khartoum, Sudan, in full:

Friday, November 20, 2009 (Khartoum) - Nuba officials in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement have refuted reports by the pro-government Akhir Lahza newspaper that the Nuba people are being ignored by the SPLM.

On Wednesday November 18, the Akhir Lahza reported that four senior SPLM officials from the Nuba Mountains met in El-Hajj Yousif in Eastern Nile and discussed the possibility of leaving the SPLM.

Speaking during a press conference in Khartoum on Thursday, a senior SPLM official from the Nuba Mountains, the Minister of State for Animal Resources and Fisheries in the Government of National Unity, Major-General Ismail Khamis Jallab, refuted the allegations.

[Major-General Ismail Khamis Jallab]: “I would like to state that what was published in Akhir Lahza is not true and I would like to assert that the Nuba people in the SPLM will remain in the SPLM forever. We think that the report was meant to create animosity between the Nuba people and our SPLM comrades in Northern Sector.”

General Jallab, who became the first SPLM Governor of South Kordofan state after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, demanded that the newspaper must apologize to the SPLM.

[Major-General Ismail Khamis Jallab]: “We are demanding that the Akhir Lahza newspaper apologizes for what they have written officially and publicly.

What I would like to confirm through this press conference is that the Nuba in the SPLM are essential members of the movement and as such, there is no room for talk about Nuba people being marginalized in the SPLM.”

General Jallab also declared that there was a particularly high turnout of SPLM supporters for the voter registration exercise in the Nuba Mountains.