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 Speech Of Cdr. Salva Kiir Delivered By H.E. Nhial Deng Nhial In Tennessee
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Speech Of Cdr. Salva Kiir Delivered By H.E. Nhial Deng Nhial In Tennessee Today
SPEECH BY NHIAL DENG NHIAL, MP,
MEMBER OF THE SPLM INTERIM POLITICAL BUREAU
& GOSS MINISTER OF REGIONAL COOPERATION,
DELIVERED ON BEHALF OF
LT. GENERAL SALVA KIIR MAYARDIT,
SPLM/A CHAIRMAN AND C-IN-C SPLA,
FIRST VICE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SUDAN & PRESIDENT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SOUTHERN SUDAN
(GOSS)
Presented to a Conference for SPLM Leadership in North America
Organized By
The SPLM Chapter of Tennessee in the United States,
Clarksville, Tennessee
March 3-5, 2006
Members of the SPLM Tennessee Chapter,
President, Faculty, Staff and Community of Austin Peay State University,
Members of SPLM Chapters in North America and Canada,
Members of the Sudanese Diaspora in the United States and Canada,
Religious Groups,
American Friends of the Sudanese People,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I bring you all very warm greetings from H.E. Lt. General Salva Kiir Mayardit, Chairman of the SPLM, 1st Vice President of the Republic of the Sudan and President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), his Cabinet in GOSS, Members of the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly, and indeed from the entire people of the New Sudan.
As we congregate today here in Clarksville, Tennessee barely seven months since the tragic loss of Dr. John Garang De Mabior, one of the finest sons Sudan has ever produced, it would only be fitting that we rise to observe a a few minutes of silence to pay tribute to his memory and to the memory of all the gallant young men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that our people can have a future worthy of human dignity (three minutes of silence was observed!).
Compatriots, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In order to get our bearings right it is extremely important to use such occasions to remind ourselves that the era that has been ushered in by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan, merely marks the end of a phase predominantly characterized by a vicious armed struggle and the beginning of a new phase, in the course of which the struggle shall continue to be waged but by exclusively political means. Twenty years of bitter and unrelenting conflict have yielded the CPA, which in turn has provided us with a degree of access to the levers of power and hence a glimpse, but only a glimpse of the promised land. The objectives for which our noble forefathers fought and died over centuries are yet to be attained. However the marginalized of Sudan can derive solace from the fact that the political ice-age in which they have been trapped for so long is at last about to thaw out.
Compatriots, Friends and Distinguished Guests,
From the outset and given its complexity and historical significance, the CPA was always going to pose daunting challenges when it comes to implementation. The initiative taken by the SPLM Leadership, a few weeks after the signing of the CPA, to send an Advance Team to Khartoum to trigger the implementation of the Agreement proved to have been a masterstroke. The tortuous consultations that the SPLM and the National Congress Party, (NCP) jointly undertook to secure the participation of other Political Forces in the drafting of The Interim National Constitution, 2005 (INC) through the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC) process, was critical, because that process and the INC, 2005 in which it eventually culminated was the key that unlocked the door to the formation of the Government of National Unity (GONU) and the other institutions envisaged by the CPA. To render the CPA provisions constitutionally binding; all the Naivasha Accords on Power Sharing, Wealth Sharing,
Security Arrangements and the Three Areas had to be given _expression and imparted the force of law, through a new Constitution. The debate on whether to work out a new constitution in conformity with the CPA or merely amend the 1998 Constitution to bring it in line with the CPA was difficult and protracted. Eventually the SPLM was able to persuade the NCP to accept that the radically different political set up inaugurated by the CPA could only be enshrined in a new constitutional document otherwise the retention of the 1998 Constitution , albeit in a modified form, would be tantamount to putting new wine in an old wineskin.
The promulgation of the INC 2005, paved the way to the formation of Governance Institutions at the National level. The Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) is also up and running. What remains to be done in the South is to set up the various Commissions and complete the full establishment of Government Bureaucracy through the smooth merger of the Civil Service that had been in operation in the former SPLM and Government of Sudan controlled areas.
The fundamental mission of Government, universally, is to create the overall conditions that promote the welfare of the individual and hence, society. The CPA would be meaningless if once the guns have fallen silent, there is no action to alleviate and ultimately eradicate hunger, provide access to basic health care, education and gainful employment. The GOSS is well aware of the high expectations of the populace in Southern Sudan and has therefore prioritized the fulfillment of basic needs. Such is the importance we attach to meeting both the immediate and medium to long term requirements of the people that we decided to engage the International Community through the Joint Assessment Mission (JAM), process to determine post-conflict and recovery needs of Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile, long before the CPA became a reality.
Compatriots, Friends and Distinguished Guests,
The right to life and survival are of primordial importance. Even the development process itself begins with Food Security, and perhaps nowhere has this been more eloquently illustrated than in India. As the second most populous nation on earth, India had to contend with the problem of having to feed many mouths. It successfully addressed the issue by launching a Green Revolution. Admittedly, India may not yet have solved the question of universal access to food as opposed to its availability, but through its food revolution it not only achieved self-sufficiency but was able to catapult itself to the threshold of Global Economic superpower status. The GOSS plans to pursue a strategy that predicates Development on the key twin production factors of Land and People. Whenever Land, itself the primary resource is coupled with human resources, development occurs. This explains our commitment to the philosophy of taking towns to the people rather than allowing the valuable human
resources of the rural areas of Sudan gravitate into ill-prepared towns. Since the two indispensable development prerequisites abound in the countryside in the form of arable land, water and human resources, it is simply inconceivable that we can escape the clutches of poverty, let alone achieve prosperity, if the developmental process bypasses the Rural Areas. Our first priority therefore is to enhance the ability of the Rural Areas to sustain livelihoods and eventually make the transition from subsistence based agriculture to a modern agro-industrial economy. For a start the GOSS will seek to support the intensification of traditional rain-fed agriculture by providing agricultural extension and veterinary services to small farmers and agro-pastoralists. This pattern will in due course evolve into medium and large scale mechanized schemes owned and run by Farmers Groups or Cooperatives. Even as the GOSS focuses on the Rural Areas as part of its overall Development Blueprint, it is
by no means oblivious to the serious strain that returning Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’S) and Refugees will be placing on the provision of services in the Urban Centers. Even before the ink had dried on the CPA, returnees started trickling back to different parts of Southern Sudan from the North. These returns could soon become a deluge and overwhelm our fledgling Urban Centers, which are in effect no more than squalid oversized villages.
The GOSS has formally resolved to take the lead in assisting the voluntary return of IDP’s and Refugees given that these returns are linked to the CPA processes of National Population Census, General Elections and the Referendum. The International Community appears no longer in a position to commit substantial resources to facilitating the return of IDP’s in particular, for fear of being seen as influencing political choices. The GOSS has therefore taken upon itself the responsibility of availing financial resources to help transport IDP’s who wish to return to their home areas, since the Donor Community is likely to limit its support to the locations to which the IDP’S will be returning.
The influx of returnees is expected in large part to hit the towns rather than the rural areas since the IDP’s have become largely urbanized in a sense as a result of their prolonged stay at the periphery of cities and large towns in Northern Sudan. To cater for the needs of this segment of the population and in order to put in place badly needed physical infrastructure, an emergency infrastructure rehabilitation and development program shall be launched in each of the ten State Capitals in the South. Plans for a Survey and Town planning exercise for these towns are already at an advanced stage. Once the actual Survey and Town Planning is completed, work will commence on road construction, extension of water and power supplies and the designation of areas earmarked for residential purposes. All returnees as well as the citizens they had left behind shall be allocated plots of land in the designated residential zones so as to avoid the phenomenon of squatter settlements or future
shanty towns.
An ambitious three-phase infrastructure rehabilitation and development program to the tune of Five Hundred Million Dollars ($ 500,000,000.00) across Southern Sudan has been initiated. These funds will be drawn from the coffers of the GOSS and from the Multi-Donor Trust Fund and will generally be utilized to repair and build roads and airstrips, improve navigability of the Nile by dredging the river bed, establish an effective Communications Network for Southern Sudan and supply electricity to most of our major towns from a combination of energy sources that include Diesel and Hydro-power as the main sources.
Compatriots, Friends and Distinguished Guests,
In the modern era of globalization, education is becoming an indispensable universal passport to prosperity. Nations that have emphasized the provision of skills to their citizens through education have been able to make good use of natural resources and more than adequately compensate for the lack of such resources where nature has not been generous. Indeed natural resource starved countries have tended to feature quite prominently among the industrialized economies of the world. We would want to emulate those states so that instead of only exporting raw materials we are able to apply the necessary skills to process and transform those raw materials into high value finished products. The GOSS will begin laying the foundations of a modern knowledge based economy by making good on its pledge to provide free universal primary education. The current state of education in Southern Sudan and other marginalized areas of the country is quite dire. In the South only twenty percent of
children have access to education and close to forty-five percent of classrooms are open air classes conducted under trees. The GOSS is targeting a fifty-two percent enrolment rate within the coming two years, up from the present twenty percent. The enrolment of girls will be tripled from eleven percent to thirty-five percent. Proper schools will also be constructed and equipped with all the basic necessities of learning. Teacher qualifications will be upgraded and the hiring of suitably qualified teachers from abroad to plug any gaps will be considered. Vocational Training Centers shall be revived and additional ones established to provide the sort of education that is responsive to the job market within the broader context of gearing education towards economic development for the benefit of both the individual and society. We also plan to offer alternate education or basic skills to at least fifty-thousand youth who have missed out on formal education. Perhaps our commitment to
education was further underscored yesterday when we signed with Austin Peay State University (APSU) a historic Memorandum of Understanding that will soon allow us to jointly launch a skills training program to help the GOSS staff its administration with qualified personnel.
Likewise, in the sphere of Health Services, much needs to be done. Maternal and child mortality rates in Southern Sudan are among the highest in the world. The statistics make grim reading. One Thousand Seven Hundred (1,700) maternal deaths occur per One Hundred Thousand (100,000) deliveries meanwhile child death rates stand at a horrendous two Hundred and Fifty (250) deaths per One Thousand (1000). The plan to remedy the situation is to launch a massive expansion in the number of Primary Health Centers, particularly those catering to the health of mother and child. The construction of one fully equipped referral hospital in each of the ten State Capitals is in the pipeline, so too is the establishment of the John Garang Memorial Hospital in Juba, in collaboration with the Government of Norway. As part of the campaign to foster a clean and healthy environment, plans for the supply of clean water, environmental sanitation and solid waste disposal services for a large number of human
settlements across towns and large villages within the next two years, are being drawn up.
Beyond immediate recovery through emergency programs, the GOSS needs to spur growth and economic development using private investment as the key tool. Nowadays people hardly differ on the fact that the Private Sector is the true engine of economic growth and development. Government merely provides the regulatory framework for Business which then goes about the business of producing goods and services. We therefore encourage private enterprise by both domestic as well as foreign private entrepreneurs. In line with our proactive policy of attracting foreign investment we shall soon unveil an Investment Code that acts as a magnet for foreign investors. To avail the other components which in tandem with a favorable investment law make up an investor friendly climate, the GOSS shall develop the necessary Policy and Legal Framework for Land Tenure and explore the possibility of setting up an Entrepreneur Development Fund to help prospective local businesses. After all, security of land
tenure is critical to any long term investment and Sudanese citizens as the main stakeholders in the development of their country should be afforded some kind of access to capital.
Compatriots, Friends and Distinguished guests,
The Leadership of the SPLM and the entire GOSS is well aware that the difficulties, which have cropped up with respect to the implementation of the CPA continue to give us many sleepless nights. The implementation is beset by two kinds of problems. One is the somewhat glacial pace of the implementation process itself and the other, which is more serious, is the fact that the Parties often hold divergent perspectives on what the various provisions of the CPA mean. Indeed it would not be an exaggeration to say that although nobody expected the implementation of the CPA to be plain sailing, the fact of the matter is that its implementation has practically become an extension of the Machakos and Naivasha Talks through a fresh round of Negotiations. We and our partners in the National Congress Party more often than not find ourselves grappling with the unenviable task of attempting to reconcile diametrically opposed interpretations of key provisions of the CPA. Having said that, we do
need to recognize that there is so much at stake that our country can ill-afford anything going wrong with the CPA. Let us therefore turn our attention for a while to the challenges associated with translating the lofty principles and ideals of the CPA into concrete achievements that will change our lives for the better. The theme of your Conference represents a fitting backdrop for this analysis because those are the very themes the CPA seeks to operationalize.
Important aspects of the Power Sharing Protocol remain unimplemented. The enactment of a new Civil Service Act and the establishment of a National Civil service Commission (NCSC) are required, to effect the arrangement whereby between Twenty to Twenty-Five percent, of medium and senior level positions in the National Civil Service shall be filled by suitably qualified persons from Southern Sudan. This has not happened and one full year into the CPA we only have SPLM Ministers in Khartoum, but without the support of the new kind of bureaucracy envisaged by the CPA. Likewise, a number of National Commissions and other Institutions are still to come into existence. These include the National Lands Commission, the Human Rights Commission and the National Elections Commission. An Institution that remains conspicuous by its absence is the Ad-hoc Technical Committee to delineate the North/South Border as it stood on January 1st 1956. The importance of this body is that the
determination of the quantities of oil from which oil revenues accrue to the GOSS and the line behind which SPLA and SAF redeploy in accordance with the Security Arrangements Protocol, hinge on it. For instance how do we verify claims that only 78% of the net Oil revenue from blocks 1,2,&4 comes from wells in Southern Sudan and the rest comes from the export of Oil extracted from Northern Sudan? Without the delineation of the North/South border needles, and dangerous controversy will persist and further problems may arise with respect to how much money the South is entitled to from net Oil exports and where troops both SAF and SPLA should be or should not be.
Another contentious issue on which our partners took an unwarranted hard-line position much the same way they did with the Energy portfolio is the representation of the SPLM in the Legislature and the Executive of Khartoum State. Because we could not agree on this during the Peace Negotiations at Naivasha, it was decided to defer it to subsequent consultations upon the establishment of the GONU and the Administration of Khartoum State. However it had always been evident to the SPLM that guidance in the resolution of the issue should be derived from the CPA, which says “The Administration of the National Capital shall be representative and during the Interim Period the two Parties shall be adequately represented in the Administration of the National Capitalâ€. By equating Khartoum, which is the Seat of the National Government with any other Northern State and consequently offering the SPLM only ten percent of the positions in the Legislature and Executive in Khartoum, the NCP
has strayed away from the notion of adequate representation and committed yet another act of political robbery in broad daylight.
Over the last few weeks the NCP attempted to ram down the throats of Sudanese, a set of laws that were hurriedly crafted as Provisional Orders and sent to the Legislative Assembly to ratify. The problem was that almost all the laws submitted were fundamentally flawed because they contradicted both the letter and spirit of the CPA and hence the Interim National Constitution (INC), 2005. One such law is the National Armed Forces Law which attempts to set a Military Doctrine for the National Armed Forces meanwhile oblivious to the fact that the SPLA constitutes part and parcel of those forces, and therefore, ought to be involved in any exercise aimed at formulating a common doctrine. Although the SPLM does not have the numbers to block legislation in the Assembly, its caucus threatened to take the politically important act of voting against the laws if tabled and to further challenge their constitutionality before the Constitutional Court. A political crisis was looming, but it
was eventually defused when a number of more sober minded NCP cadres agreed with the SPLM stance that it would be best to withdraw the laws and re-introduce them through routine legislative procedures. The continued existence on the statute books of laws repugnant to the letter and spirit of the Constitution is problematic. These laws should be quickly scrapped, especially the ones that flagrantly contravene the Bill of Rights.
The NCP deserves some credit for displaying a more tolerant and relaxed attitude to the exercise of individual freedoms. However, abuses that embarrasses us all as Sudanese still occur. Sometimes, goaded by pangs of nostalgia for the past, Security forces go on a harassment spree of citizens. At times it gets quite serious, as demonstrated by the recent detention and manhandling of a prominent SPLM Student leader. We strongly suspect that his treatment at the hands of the police had something to do with his activities as a student activist associated with the SPLM.
A critically important item of the CPA that appears to have hit a snag and may not be salvageable is the Abyei Boundary Commission (ABC) Report. By rejecting the ABC Report, our partners in the NCP have effectively closed the door to the establishment of any administration for Abyei Area, and it appears highly doubtful that the deadlock on Abyei can be broken without renegotiating parts of the CPA relating to Abyei or reopening the ABC report, something which is anathema to the SPLM.
As for the Wealth Sharing Protocol, progress has been markedly slow in coming, especially in relation to the determination and timely transfer of the GOSS’s share of oil revenues. All that is being provided at present to the GOSS via its side of the National Petroleum Commission (NPC), is data on monthly oil revenue that inexplicably appears to fluctuate rather dramatically. The CPA stipulates that the SPLM shall have access to the Oil Contracts but up to now that has not happened and we have consequently remained mere recipients of information on how much oil is being produced and what our share in revenue terms is from the export of that oil, when we should be part of the process of the management of the Petroleum Industry from start to finish. The CPA basically overhauls the operation of the Petroleum Industry in Sudan by transferring responsibility for key decisions away from the Ministry of Energy to a new co-management mechanism between the GONU and the GOSS in the form
of the NPC. The NPC, since its inception has held only two meetings, none of which was really fruitful. It is marking time because whereas the SPLM wishes the NPC to assert itself through institutions and structures organic to it, our partners would want the NPC to be a lofty ceremonial organ, that meets only once quarterly leaving the entire business of the day to day running of the Oil Industry exclusively in the hands of the Ministry of Energy.
The CPA and the INC, 2005, unambiguously assign exclusive responsibility for oversight of the Oil Industry to the NPC and nowhere does either Document give the Ministry of Energy any concurrent powers in key areas such as the negotiation of Oil Contracts. What this implies is that whether or not the Ministry of Energy exercises any of the functions of the NPC as prescribed by the CPA and the INC, 2005, depends entirely on the sole discretionary power of the NPC.
After a great deal of initial reluctance our NCP counterparts on the NPC finally agreed to have a Secretariat for the NPC but continue to insist up to this day that the Secretariat, which incidentally will be headed by the Minister of Energy himself, should confine itself to purely clerical matters. This in our view is not in keeping with the spirit of the CPA and the INC 2005, and we maintain that the Secretariat should have a technical capacity to help implement the directives of the NPC and to allow it take informed policy decisions.
In view of the impact Oil revenues, which currently account for almost the entire budget of Southern Sudan, have on the provision of services and development in the South, we feel that full transparency on all matters related to Oil is simply indispensable.
Compatriots, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The centrality of Security Arrangements to the well-being of the CPA can hardly be overemphasized. Implementation in this sphere has also been characterized by hiccups. The SPLA has been able to promptly organize its side of the Joint Integrated Units (JIUs) and in the process was even able to pull some forces out of Eastern Sudan as required by the CPA. The SAF are yet to reciprocate and begin paying the salaries of our JIUs that are now owed more than six months salary arrears. There are now signs though, that following the recent and rather belated formation of the Joint Defence Board (JDB) such problems will be sorted out.
What we find most worrying however is the claim by SAF that its redeployment from the South is already well underway. So far there is no tangible proof of that. All that we have is the word of SAF, which nobody including the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS), seems able to independently verify. The CPA clearly stipulates that by now thirty-One percent of SAF should have been withdrawn north of the 1/1/1956 border. Despite all that we still remain hopeful that outstanding Security and Military issues will be resolved in accordance with the CPA so that mutual confidence between our two sides is not further dented and the CPA endangered.
The infamous Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is another security related concern for the GOSS. Because of the activities of the LRA the peace brought by the signing of the CPA is far from complete, particularly in Equatoria where the LRA appear to roam at will. Under the CPA and INC 2005, the SPLM and the NCP have a duty to expel foreign armed dissident groups such as the LRA from Sudanese soil. During his recent trip to Juba and Rumbek, the President of the Republic, Field Marshall Omer Hassan Al-Bashir issued directives to his forces to get rid of the LRA as soon as possible. His words undoubtedly come as music to the ears of his audience, which now awaits action in the hope that SAF has indeed finally severed its ties with the LRA and are now ready to fight them. This is yet to be seen in practice.
For its part, the GOSS, through its President has reiterated on more than one occasion that there are only three courses of action as far as the LRA are concerned: withdrawal from Southern Sudan, negotiation and expulsion by force. The GOSS is so determined to close the LRA chapter in Southern Sudan that it will leave no stone unturned to ensure that the LRA leaves through any of the three methods that have been outlined above.
Speaking still of security, but on a much more positive note, we must acknowledge here the historic Juba Declaration on Unity and Integration. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Lt. General Salva Kiir, SPLA C-in-C and Lt. Gen. Paulino Matip Nhial, formerly of the South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF) and currently Deputy C-in-C of the SPLA, the people of Southern Sudan were able to proclaim another monumental achievement. Under the Juba Declaration, the SPLM/A and the SSDF agreed to the immediate cessation of hostilities and integration of forces under one SPLA command. We all hope that this highly significant move by Gen. Matip will inspire Other Armed Groups (OAGs) to join their brothers in consolidating the CPA and creating cohesion amongst Southern Sudanese. It is important to note that even though the CPA was negotiated solely by the SPLM/A and the NCP, it is there for the wellbeing of all peace loving people in the Sudan.
Compatriots, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The twin goals of the CPA are peace and transformation of the Sudanese political landscape. The preservation of the peace that we now enjoy in Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile and the expansion of its scope to encompass areas still plagued by conflict, notably, Darfur, and Eastern Sudan, is a political imperative. As we have said time and again, peace is indivisible and so it must reign in Darfur and Eastern Sudan too. Our partners in the National Congress party have sought either to exclude us from critically important National processes such as the search for peace in Darfur and Eastern Sudan or force us into peripheral roles.
This attitude represents and perpetuates the anachronistic behavior of past successive Khartoum regimes that believed Southern Sudanese are alien to the politico-cultural mainstream of the country and should therefore confine themselves to issues affecting Southern Sudan only. Today’s reality is far from that picture. Since the inception of the SPLM/A, the political arena in Sudan has been witnessing a fundamental political re-alignment of forces along political and economic considerations affecting citizens and not tribe, race, region and/or religion. As a result, the SPLM/A finds itself at the cutting edge of a mass National Political Movement that endeavors to transform Sudan. The problems in Darfur and Eastern Sudan are manifestations of this process, and the SPLM is expected to play a leading role in the peaceful resolution of the conflicts raging in those areas.
The essential elements of a peacefully negotiated settlement of the Darfur problem are crystal clear. These are, a total cessation of hostilities and serious negotiations leading to peace. Let me begin first with the negotiations. The ongoing Abuja Talks have not yet achieved any tangible results because the role of the SPLM is still a token one at best. The NCP should actually let the SPLM lead the process because that would add real value to the quest for peace in Darfur. The SPLM strongly identifies with the cause of the people of Darfur, a cause which is not fundamentally different from that for which the SPLM had been fighting. This means that in the context of formal Peace Talks, communication between the SPLM and the Armed Opposition Groups in Darfur is likely to be more productive than would be the case if dialogue with the groups were left primarily to the NCP.
Secondly, a successful outcome to Peace Talks between the GOS and the Darfur Forces requires a peace package modeled on the CPA with particular emphasis on the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile Protocol. This would presuppose an active role for the SPLM, which as co-architect of the CPA would be in an excellent position to sell a deal modeled on an Accord it played an instrumental role in forging. The feasibility of reaching an agreement on Darfur depends on the creation of a conducive climate for dialogue as much as it does on the substance of the negotiations. People tend to overlook the fact that the successful conclusion of the Peace Talks and the eventual signing of the CPA, had a lot to do with the Agreement of October 2003 between the SPLM/A and the GOS on the Cessation of Hostilities. The same situation needs to be created in Darfur and the protection of the civil population forms a large part of that. The role of the SPLM in stabilizing the security situation in
Darfur so as to create a positive climate for Peace Talks could also be central. The contribution made by the African Union (AU) forces thus far to improve security in Darfur and against all odds is commendable. It is time for the Sudanese themselves to reinforce those efforts in a meaningful way. In this regard, we would like to call upon the NCP and the International Community to take another look at the earlier proposal by the late Leader of the SPLM and former First Vice President of the Sudan and President of GOSS, Dr. John Garang De Mabior, for the deployment of the JIUs alongside AU forces in Darfur to protect civilians and disarm the Janjaweed.
The JIUs which could account for up to two-thirds of the forces in Darfur split equally between the SPLA and SAF would certainly do a much better job in restraining the Janjaweed and curbing their capacity to murder and terrorize civilians. The reason indigenous Sudanese troops are likely to be more effective in reducing the level of violence against civilians is that they would find it a lot easier to adopt a more risk-prone offensive military posture than any of their foreign counterparts. The deployment of JIUs in Darfur would signal that the Sudan Government has taken a more pro-active approach to sincerely resolve the Darfur crisis.
Compatriots, Friends and Distinguished Guests,
The ultimate goal of the CPA, at least from the SPLM perspective is the transformation of Sudan in consonance with the Vision of the New Sudan. Our country needs to reinvent itself in order to survive. We need to forge a National Political Consensus on how our country should be governed, and the SPLM is the catalyst for that process because no other entity is better qualified to spearhead the desired change. The Vision of the New Sudan is founded on voluntary unity and premised on a new political dispensation that recognizes all Sudanese as equals irrespective of their diversities. Ideally, the New Sudan would be a State managed on the basis of genuine pluralistic democracy, good governance, strict adherence to the doctrine of the supremacy of the Rule of Law and respect for Fundamental Human Rights. Our Movement, the SPLM represents the sole hope for change and it must therefore assume political leadership of all the forces that expect it to inspire and light the path to the
future. We should no longer hesitate to take our rightful place at the forefront of our country’s march to its destiny because the correctness and overwhelming appeal of our Vision, has been vindicated. The millions who thronged the Green Square on July 8 last year in a spectacle Sudan had never seen before and may never see again, did not only come to pay tribute to the founder of the SPLM and the hero of Peace, Dr. John Garang De Mabior. They also came to demonstrate their emphatic endorsement of the Vision of the New Sudan.
Now that interim SPLM structures have been set up to prepare for the next SPLM Convention, the Movement will be re-energized in its sacred mission of steering Sudan towards a new dawn. The age-old barriers of geography, ethnicity and religion will soon begin to crumble before the relentless onslaught of the Sudanese people as they forge ahead with the help of the SPLM towards a better future of true enduring peace, a new unity cemented by respect for diversity and recognition of every individual’s worth and prosperity.
Compatriots, Friends, Distinguished Guests,
Conditions back in Southern Sudan are still a bit harsh. Yet we would still like to urge that you consider coming back to make your contribution, especially if you possess skills that may be in short supply. We would particularly like to challenge educated women to return. We have a very progressive Constitution in Southern Sudan that sets aside a guaranteed twenty-five percent of all Government positions for women. Regrettably, we are not even able to fill five percent of those slots because either the women who could do the job are simply not there or they have been lured away to the financially greener pastures of the NGO world. Southern Sudan will not be built in a day but we know that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Let us not forget that the America you live in today and which is so admired by the rest of the world was one time as underdeveloped as Southern Sudan is today. The USA is what it is today because its founders decided to ignore adversity and to
persevere so as to lay the foundations of modern day America. They are not part of it but it is they, who made it happen. Likewise, let us bear in mind that Southern Sudan, which has so much potential will not miraculously transform overnight into a Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Dubai, unless this generation stays and builds it into one.
Dear Compatriots, we would like to urge you to abstain from rumor mongering and the peddling of concocted sensational news. Many false reports are being carried almost daily in the press and on the web. Frequently you would here that someone in the SPLM leadership has been dismissed or is about to and at times you are made to believe that another has been suspended or is unhappy and will quit. There is no use in engaging in such activities which only serve to detract us from focusing on the essential tasks that we collectively need to carry out.
Finally, I would like once again on behalf of the President of the Government of Southern Sudan, Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, the Cabinet, Members of the Legislative Assembly of Southern Sudan, the people of New Sudan, and on my own behalf, to express our profound gratitude and appreciation to the entire APSU Community for hosting this well organized Conference of the SPLM Chapters Leadership in North America. I bring you similar gratitude to the American people and Government for the enduring empathy that you have shown for the struggle of the people of New Sudan.
Long Live the Struggle for Democracy and Freedom,
Long Live Peace Loving Peoples of the World,
Long Live SPLM,
Long Live the New Sudan!
SPLM Oyee!
New Sudan Oyee!
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Deng
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست