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| Sunday, 30 January 2005 |
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Sudan rebels open Khartoum office following peace deal KHARTOUM, Saturday (AFP) Southern rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement opened offices in the capital Friday, cementing their conversion into a political movement following a landmark peace deal with the government earlier this month. "This is an historic moment," SPLM executive committee member Paul Thomas told reporters at the inauguration ceremony which was attended by hundreds of people, drawn from northern opposition parties as well as southern supporters of the rebels. "Instead of only hearing about it from a distance, people are now seeing the SPLM physically among them," said Thomas, to shouts of: "Long live the SPLM ... long live freedom," from the crowd. Scores of jubilant southerners queued up to snatch a glimpse of the rebels' new offices on the third storey of a city-centre block, done up in the light green and light blue colours of the SPLM. The offices used to house US financial services giant Citibank before Washington imposed unilateral economic sanctions against the Khartoum regime in the mid-1990s. To mark the change of use, the rebels made the ritual sacrifice of a bull outside the building which onlookers decribed as a "sign of peace and victory." No government officials were present at the ceremony. Office director Ramadan Abdullah suggested they might have been unaware it had been brought forward to the morning. |
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