قرنق مصاص دماء الانسان الجنوبى المسكين

Quote: Dr. Garang's Speech June 5th 2004 06 June 2004 Nairobi The full speech by Dr. Garang De Mabior, Chairman and Command in Chief of the SPLM/A, on the occassion of signing of the Nairobi Declaration on launching the final phase of peace in Sudan. H.E. Excellency, President Mwai Kibaki, President of the Republic of Kenya and First Lady Lucy Kibaki; H.E. Hilde Johnson, Minister for International Cooperation of the Kingdom of Norway and IPF Co-Chair; H.E. The Ambassador of the United States and Representing Senator Danforth; H.E. Ahmed Mahar, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Egypt; H.E. Dr. Amra Musa, Secretary General of the Arab League; H.E. Ambassador M. Sahnoun, Representative of the U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Anan; H.E. Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, A.U. Representative; H.E. The Ambassador of Italy and IPF Co-Chair; H.E. The Ambassador Alan Goulti, Special Envoy of Prime Minister Tony Blair; Your Excellencies, Honorable Ministers of the Republic of Kenya and those from the IGAD and East African Region, Your Excellencies, Ambassadors and High Commissioners, Distinguished guests and Members of the Press, My Fellow countrymen and women who have come to witness this occasion, Your Excellency President Kibaki, Ladies and Gentlemen, Allow me to make few remarks on this memorable day and in presence of such an august gathering. The document we have just signed with Ustaz Ali Osman Taha, the First Vice President of Sudan, represents a solemn declaration on our part that war in Sudan is truly coming to an end. And I would say with confidence that the six protocols enumerated in this declaration shall, if carried out honestly, diligently and with unfailing political will, regenerate the Sudan and settle its fate as a country voluntarily united in justice, honour and dignity for all its citizens and for the first time since independence. The agreement will change Sudan forever! Sudan cannot and will never be the same again as this peace agreement will engulf the country in democratic and fundamental transformation instead of being engulfed in war as it has always been up to the present. Sudan’s fratricidal wars, you all know, have been going on for 38 years of our forty eight years of independence since 01/01/1956. At certain points of time it appeared as if the whole country - not only North and South, but also East and West – was about to be engulfed in a bottomless pit of conflictual hatred. I must at this point tell you, that nobody abhors war more than those who lived through its horrors, ordeals, pains and tribulations. The civil war in Sudan not only ravaged the resources of the country and sapped national strength they, if continued wantonly, would have ended up impoverishing the nation’s soul and causing a total national moral collapse and final disintegration of the country. All these wars will now be behind us as a new era of peace is about to dawn in a New Sudanese political dispensation. Indeed, what makes this peace welcome is that it came as a result of a hurting stalemate which made both sides realize that a win-win peace is attainable and that the cost of the alternative of peace is far less than that of continuation of the war. Peace became possible because both parties realized that the country was dissipating, that the state seemed to be withering away without undergoing the famous Marxian transformation and that the “Old Sudanâ€‌ we have known was heading blindly into an abyss of irreversible fragmentation. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The six protocols, for those who had the opportunity to read them, reflect an intricate web of governmental institutions and mind-boggling calculus of power sharing, wealth sharing and security arrangements during the Interim Period. This intricacy is a function of the intricate and complex Sudanese situation. But behind the architecture of power and the calculus of wealth peace has an inner meaning. So what does peace mean to us in the SPLM? What does it mean to me personally not as a leader but as a brother, an uncle, a father and a child of God? There are many – here and elsewhere – who think that peace is about job allocation, is about apportionment of positions of authority, is about lining pockets through misuse or abuse of public assets, or is about lording it over others. Those who thus think must be reading from a different script than mine. We have more supreme goals and loftier ideals and alternatives. My script reads that peace is what people think and believe peace should hold for them. Peace to my mind and in the depth of my soul is a promise of better living to the young, the middle aged and the aged, to each individual, to the unemployed and the destitute, to the sick and the unlettered, all over Sudan. It is also a promise to the men and women of Southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile, Abyei, Eastern Sudan and other marginalized areas of Sudan who suffered in dignified silence the loss of their dear ones in the war of liberation or who felt and still do feel a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, a promise that we shall never betray the cause for which those martyrs have made the ultimate sacrifice. And theirs is a cause for better and more honourable living. It is also a promise to martyrs and to those who lost their dear ones on the other side, a promise that just and honorable peace shall heal all the wounds that we have inflicted on ourselves on both sides. Ladies and Gentlemen: I cannot up to now erase the image indelibly marked in my mind: the spectacle of the young boys and girls from Kakuma Refugee Camp who sang praises to peace before me as part of the celebrations by our Kenya-based community of that occasion when I briefed the Sudanese community in Kenya at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre here in Nairobi last Saturday on May 31st 2004. Peace to me is what peace meant to those youngsters as it was reflected on their glittering eyes and expressed in their words that pierced the hearts. This is the peace for the achievement of which I shall employ all my wit, will and energy and for which we have all sacrificed for the last 21 years. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Please give me leave to briefly illustrate to you the contours of this promise and the vision that guides it. At the national level we shall articulate a development strategy that shall:- 1. Address the root causes that foster recurrent civil wars, so that these wars end in peaceful and just resolutions of conflicts all over our country including Darfur and Eastern Sudan. 2. It is a strategy and vision that recognizes the diversity of Sudan as a resource for social and political transformation and development and thus a source of strength rather than of division, conflict and bloody generational wars. 3. It is a strategy and vision that builds confidence and trust among all people of Sudan and at all levels of governance, and combat poverty and the sense of marginalization and exclusion in all regions of Sudan. 4. It is a strategy and vision that shall meet the Millennium Development Goals through development plans articulated and owned by us, and enhance economic growth through rural development and transformation of traditional agriculture that is integrated with agro-industries. 5. It is a strategy and vision that shall effectively deliver social services through devolution and decentralization of power and empowerment of people. 6. And finally, it is a strategy and vision that shall give the unity of Sudan a chance during the Interim Period by making it attractive, while at the end of that period giving the people of Southern Sudan and Abyei the option and choice between session (i.e., an independent Southern Sudan) or a new Sudanese unity in which we are equal stakeholders and which New Sudan we shall put in place during the Interim Period; a strategy and vision which also affords the people of the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile viable options for determining their destiny through the exercise of the democratic right of “popular consultationâ€‌ through their democratically elected parliaments. Within the South and the war-affected regions, the real test in the post-conflict phase is how to devote our efforts to address the centrifugal forces that have fostered conflict. This is one of the primary commitments that we have set for ourselves during the liberation struggle and which we shall relentlessly pursue during the Interim Period and beyond. However, on the threshold of peace, the people of the Sudan, particularly the war-affected communities, face formidable social and economic problems and also tremendous opportunities. The major problems that require extensive attention fall in the areas of physical infrastructure, health, education and water. For example in the area of physical infrastructure, there has never been any tarmac road in Southern Sudan since creation, an area the size of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi put together, while in the area of education, the net enrolment rate in primary schools is only 20% with about 80% of those having no benches to sit on and only 7% of the teachers are trained. Besides, at least three out of every four adults are illiterate and one of every ten female adults is literate. In the field of health, the level of access to an improved water source is only 27% and there is only one medical doctor for every 100,000 persons. Moreover, the prevalence of HIV among male adults is 2.6% and 3.1% among female adults, while it is more than 5% among Sudanese refugees in the neighbouring countries, and as refugees return home one of the imports shall be HIV. Those are frightening statistics that must inform our priorities. Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the challenges that shall be met by both the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) and the National Government. As regards the GOSS, it is our intention to devolve power to the maximum so that decisions shall be taken at the lowest possible level of governance. We have not wrested power from a hegemonizing national centre to allocate it to another centre that is based on the political elites of the South. Power shall be exercised by the states and indeed by local governments within the states. Armed with the necessary powers and equipped with the needed resources, this style of governance shall ensure a more efficient delivery system of development and services. The principle of decentralization of power is a time-honored principle since it responds to local social and economic situations, not least amongst which is the neutralization of the centrifugal forces to which I have just alluded and which are generally the consequence of failure by Central Authority to address local problems and concerns. Such local problems and concerns cannot be effectively addressed from the Centre since such Authorities are far away from the people; they can only be effectively addressed by empowered local authorities that have both the necessary power of decision making and the necessary resources to implement such decisions. In the words of Alexander Hamilton: “There are certain social principles in human nature from which we may draw the most solid conclusions with respect to the conduct of individuals and communities. “We love our families more than our neighbours; we love our neighbours more than our countrymen in general.â€‌ “The human affectionsâ€‌, Hamilton says “like the solar heat, lose their intensity as they depart from the centre and become languid in proportion to the expansion of the circle on which they act.â€‌ This is the vision that, has guided one of the foremost proponents of government decentralization. As you can see the principle of decentralization is common sense, but unfortunately common sense is not common. As regards our role at the national level, the only way for us to move forward is through full inclusiveness. While the SPLM and the National Congress Party (NCP) shall be the major partners in the initial interim government of national unity, our understanding of partnership is well-rooted in inclusiveness which means bringing on board all political forces in the Sudan, chief among them the political parties under the umbrella of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). To that end we have proposed a social contract, based on national consensus, that shall be faithful to the peace agreement and that shall clearly define parameters of good governance and bench marks and targets for social and economic development during the interim period. It shall also delineate ethical codes of conduct for all political players. We, together, shall call upon all parties to discuss this social contract and national consensus with a view to adhering to it. Neither we in the SPLM, nor the National Congress Party own the Sudan or have a monopoly over its governance. So, without losing sight of the objective realities that place us at the helm of governance today, we shall always be conscious of the existence of others. At the same time, we wish to challenge the others to face the realities of good governance, development, nation-building and national regeneration. We should also be reminded that politics is not only about power, but first and foremost about people, their concerns and livelihoods. We believe also that we can not talk about peace and development in the Sudan while some regions in Sudan are bleeding with civil strife. Darfur is a case in point and the situation in that region is a classical case of marginalization and exclusion. The parties must denounce and avoid the use of military force in Darfur or any other part of our country for no amount of military force shall be enough to address such problems, as we have seen in the case of the South. Only through political dialogue can the problem in Darfur be resolved. Indeed this is the meaning of the preamble to the declaration which we have signed today that the Parties: “reiterate their determination to continue resolving the root causes of conflict and violence in Sudan which inflict hardship and suffering on the people and seriously hamper the prospects for economic development and the attainment of social justice in Sudanâ€‌. The protocols and agreements we concluded, if they are faithfully implemented, have the possibility to provide a basis for the resolution of conflict in other regions of Sudan, particularly Darfur and Eastern Sudan. Indeed they provide a model of resolving problems emanating from marginalization and exclusion in all of rural Sudan. In this connection, I want parenthetically to say something important about implementation of these protocols. I must forewarn of the difficulties we shall face in the implementation of the peace agreement. As I alluded to before, we are reaching this peace agreement because both parties to the conflict are convinced that the alternative of peaceful resolution of the conflict is far better than continuation of the war. Similarly, for the parties to faithfully implement the peace agreement, the price of non-implementation must be made much higher than the price of implementation – So there must be found ways of making the price of not implementing the peace agreement prohibitively much higher than the price of implementing it, and that way both sides will implement the peace agreement faithfully. Finally, let me pay tribute and congratulate Ustaz Ali Osman Taha, and perhaps myself, and certainly the two delegations of the SPLM and GOS, and of course General Sumbeiywo and the IGAD envoys and facilitators for leading the Sudan peace process to this final lap. In our tortuous journey toward peace for the last nine months there were ups and downs. Like the weather the atmosphere of negotiations sometimes changed suddenly and drastically, sometimes becoming very cloudy and dark, and sometimes clearing up and becoming very bright; there were moments of despair and spells of hope and there were occasions of complete lapse of faith in any peace prospect. But always at the end wisdom prevailed. If that was not to happen, we would have become a monument of derision before the world, and even worse before the Sudanese people in both North and South. Nine months is the period it takes to make and deliver a baby and we have now delivered a healthy robust baby, but this baby needs proper nurturing to grow. But let us also give due where due is deserved. At this juncture, I would like to point out that the IGAD countries and their ######### of State, Ministers, Peace Envoys, and indeed their populace, who have been with us through thick and thin, guiding, advising, cajoling and sometimes threatening to abandon the process, deserve praise! To them let us give a warm applause. Our thanks also go to those brotherly countries in Africa, the Arab world and the wider international community who, in numerous occasions either volunteered to bring peace to Sudan or did encourage in manifold manners the on-going peace process. In this connection, I wish to single out the Nigerian efforts (Abuja I & II), the Joint Egyptian-Libyan Initiative (JELI), the African Union and the Arab League efforts for post-conflict reconstruction or rather construction of Southern Sudan. I must also mention a few of the very many names to thank for their contribution to the Sudan peace process; among them are imminent people like Obasanjo and Babangida of Nigeria, Kaunda, Magabe, Masire, Njoma, Chisano and Mandela of Southern Africa; Mubarak, Gadafi and Boutafilika of Northern Africa; Jimmy Carter, the late James Grant and OLS that has save millions of lives since 1989, President Bush, his Secretary of State Collin Powel and his Special envoy Senator Danforth; both Houses of the United States Congress; Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Special Envoy Ambassador Alan Goulti; The United Nations Secretary General and his Special Envoy Ambassador Sahnoun; and a special friend of the Sudan peace process, the Norwegian Minister Hilde Johnson, who is here representing the Troika or Quadroika, and finally, last but not least, the leaders of this Region led then by Daniel Arap Moi, Museveni, Zenawi and Aferwoki, my sincere thanks to all these peace-makers. Finally, a word of tribute to my fellow neighboring countries of Eastern Africa, to their leaders and people, you have done a lot to accommodate our people … We envisage continued cooperation in many fields … My special thanks to President Mwai Kibaki who is hosting this occasion and to all the IGAD leaders for leading this victory of peace and sanity in a turbulent. Finally, I pay tribute and congratulate the Sudanese people to whom this peace belongs. Thank you very much and God bless the Sudan and Africa. Dr. John Garang de Mabior Chairman and C-in-C, SPLM/A.