 So, to our next panel, a road paved with good intentions, examining the role of the CPA from the drafter's perspective. We've had a great kind of big picture from General Simbeuo. I think we're going to move now to a number of people that worked intensively with General Simbeuo during that period, get into some of the granularity of what went into this process. As a general outline, there were choices made at the time of the CPA, what to include, what not to include, what had to be agreed upon, what could be left or had to be left for future agreement. So this was very much a negotiation process in that many things that I'm sure the mediators wanted settled was not ultimately settled. We're going to talk, I think we'll begin with the panel here to talk a little bit about the choices that were made, the things that were kind of postponed, and perhaps then the consequences that have grown out of the decisions that were made in that process. We're going to begin with Nicholas Hayson. You all have extensive biographies along with your agenda. He is director for political affairs in the executive office of Ban Ki-moon. As you'll see from his bioconstitutional work in South Africa, in Iraq, but in a whole slew of countries, conflicted countries across the world, we're delighted to have Nicholas Hayson with us here today. We have Susan Page, who is currently deputy assistant secretary for African Affairs at the U.S. State Department. She's covering Central and Southern Africa. She's a Harvard-trained lawyer with a long history of experience in Sub-Saharan Africa. She was, again, a resource person within the IGAD mediating team. And since then was with the National Democratic Institute on working on East Africa, I think East and Southern Africa, again. Again, you have the bios, a long history working on, again, very difficult issues. And then we have Julian Hardinger, who is an expert in mediation and facilitation in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, expert pool. He was senior research fellow at the Institute of Federalism. He has worked in his capacity, again, a whole range of difficult, seemingly intractable processes in Somalia, done work on the LRA, on Sudan, and the list goes on. We're going to turn, so with that kind of, that wasn't a very great introduction, but why don't we turn to our panelists? I will begin with you, Nicholas, and move through the panel and open up for questions. We'll try to end at 11.15 so that the second panel has kind of equivalent time. Thank you, Jennifer. I thought I would start by just reflecting on the CPA, the nature of the CPA, and what we as a mediation team did or tried to do. The way I think of mediation teams is that they find parties who are hostages to their own imagination, their own experience, their own relationships. And what we try and do as mediators is to broaden that imagination, to give them the tools to rethink and perhaps talk to each other in different ways with new things. So in that task, and that is really as much as we can do, is to broaden their imagination. The agreement remains that of the parties, and it's quite important to bear in mind that the parties, the form of their agreement is represented in the black and white of the text. I say that because since the CPA was signed, obviously a lot of people have approached us, and questioned us on its shortcomings, principally in three areas. Either in regard to the process, secondly in regard to the ambiguities in the text itself, or thirdly in regard to gaps, what is not in the agreement. And I just want to touch on those three, considering Julian and Susan will pick up some of those issues. On the process, perhaps the most enduring critique is the narrow base of the agreement itself. In other words, it was between two belligerents, and it dealt with matters which necessarily involved a wide range of actors and players in Sudan who were not in the process. And I think there are good reasons for expressing that anxiety, because good agreements have all the spoilers or potential spoilers in from the start, and they sign off on the agreement. And it needs to be said, or but it needs to be said, typically ceasefire agreements start off with the belligerents, and the belligerents only. You don't want other players at the table. And that is really how this agreement started off. And as it expanded to deal with more general and constitutional questions in Sudan, it behoved us as the mediation to point out to the parties that it was dealing with matters which required other players at the table. Even if only the other militia groups in the south or the opposition in the north. And it really was very decidedly, despite the repetitively raising the issue, the decision of the parties that this agreement could only be effectively reached if they were the two players and that they would stand responsible for bringing the other parties in. So that was a choice of the parties themselves. In regard, let me just mention one other thing, the other aspect of inclusivity which we raised repetitively was the absence of women at the negotiating table. And that also was the choice of the parties to make it a largely and almost always an all male event. The second issue is ambiguities. And perhaps just to explain why these texts typically have ambiguities. We like to think them as creative ambiguities, but they can be also disastrous ambiguities. That is because the enormous pressure to find agreement and to find agreement on some of the core issues which divide the parties. And frequently that issue is not right for resolution there and then. And the parties know that they cannot definitively and in detail resolve it. But they have to keep the agreement going. They have to stop a breakdown in the talks and peace talks typically are like riding a bicycle. If you stand still you will fall over and then you will go backwards in fact and you've got to pick up the pieces later. And so generally with ambiguities what you do is you find a formula that both parties can live with and they sign on to it knowing that the other party has a different idea of what is meant by that phrase. But with some resolve we usually hope that in the course of time and the implementation of the agreement, the collaboration that necessarily must exist between the parties they will find a way to work out that problem. I think one of those examples would be the issue of the description in the two disputed northern areas that the government will undertake a popular consultation. We don't know what a popular consultation is and I know that people have approached me to say what did you mean by popular consultation? What we can tell you is the parties agreed that it wouldn't be a referendum or that they wouldn't put the word referendum in although it didn't preclude a referendum in southern Blue Nile and in southern Côte d'Fan in Blue Nile state in southern Côte d'Fan. And so that is really what we hope for as mediators when we have these ambiguous provisions and it needs to be said we can't legislate political will. We can ask in situations where the process is not inclusive that they inscribe in the agreement even when they have decided to keep other parties out. They inscribe in the agreement processes which will bring other parties in later on in the implementation of the accord. And that was really the best we could do in regard to the inclusivity. In regard to ambiguities it's our duty to advise the parties. You've got different views on this and it's going to play out badly. Or to provide or and to provide mechanisms in the agreement to allow the parties in the course of implementing the agreement to deal with the ambiguities and gaps. Finally just on the question of gaps Julian and Susan will talk about the very important part of every agreement which is the implementation. Generally how reluctant parties are at the end of the deal to start to deal with the messy details of who's going to do what and where and with what money. But the one issue which is of particularly importance is the question of the morning after the referendum. It is perhaps the most volatile moment that we will find in Sudanese history if I can be speculative. And the truth is and we pointed this out to the parties a referendum in many senses is an opinion poll. It is not a legal act of secession. Referendums if the self decides to secede require a number of events consequent upon that decision. They require to resolve questions like assets, national debts, share of it, the sharing of the oil and all the other arrangements under which they are in their futures are kind of deeply entwined at the moment. The truth is that the parties were unwilling at that point to negotiate the post referendum consequences. Perhaps understandably because the mere fact that they had agreed to this process relatively unique in Africa which is a consensual division as it were consensual default just in response to a previous question. I think African leaders set their face against unilateral declarations of independence but where it's a consensual process there's no and shouldn't be any opposition. And the CPA essentially delivers a consensual process in theory. So it's just to really emphasize that in regard to the referendum there are a number of issues which have to be organized. Last week in the New York mini-summit the parties were quite clear in agreeing to the referendum to hold it timeously and peacefully to abide by its results, give effect to its decision and to plan for the consequences publicly. Privately quite frankly the old bitterness and low levels of trust emerged in the discussions and I think that's just the last point I'd make about the CPA. No agreement can legislate political will, can prescribe a spirit of partnership. At best what we can hope for is that the mechanics of implementing the agreement seize the parties, actively assume a kind of co-management and a joint responsibility and some ownership and collaborative spirit which comes out of that co-ownership. But if they don't exhibit that then really it's not to the agreement that one can go to find it. Thank you Nicholas. Susan. Thank you very much. It's always difficult to go after General Simbeiwo and Fink as we call him and know him lovingly. But I'll try to do my best. I think the issues were really quite well framed both by Steve Morrison in the introduction by the ambassador, Swiss ambassador and Jennifer and then given the overall view from General Simbeiwo. But I think what I'll try to do is be a little bit more specific on the areas that Fink mentioned. In terms of inclusivity, we actually had lots of debates about the word inclusivity which does not really appear in the dictionary. See I'm even saying the Bible. But one of the ways that we tried to deal with it was to help the parties to get beyond the sole responsibility of the parties by both the SPLM and the NCP in two ways, well in several ways. But one was that both sides claimed that they represented their constituents, the rest of the population. So in the case of the NCP, the rest of the north and in the case of the SPLM, the rest of the south or the entire south. One of the things that came out of the peace agreement was to try to broaden that support but also to figure out what level of support they really had from the population. So one thing that General Simbeiwo did was to organize a trip throughout the country, not just the south but also to the north and try to find out what people were saying. Of course you're always going to get some rallies that are going to be exclusively driven by one side or the other to get as many of their supporters there. But it was to try to get a sense of what other people were thinking that there was in fact some popular support for the positions that were being taken or argued for. Another area was to try to encourage civil society. And this has been another one of the complaints in terms of inclusivity, not just the lack of women participation at the negotiating table, which we didn't really have any control over, but also the fact that civil society was not engaged in any sort of role at the table. And so what we tried to do was to make sure that we constantly briefed civil society, that we had regular meetings with civil society, so that they were at least heard and that their views were in some sense incorporated, even if it was just through us listening and being able to try to incorporate some of those conclusions into the actual peace agreement. The last thing I would mention on the inclusivity bit is, when it got down to the final terms of some of the commissions that were established, and this actually goes to a bit of the ambiguity point, which I'll speak about in a second, was to encourage the parties to have this National Constitutional Review Commission. And to the party's credit, that was actually a very inclusive body, and that was meant to get civil society opposition from both the North and the South, labor leaders and others to help with the drafting of those new laws that had to come into being. So I think that was one of the successful portions of in fact trying to overcome that burden, and the parties took it upon themselves to broaden that network that we had established as a 60-member committee and initially they decided to actually make it up to 180 people. So you can imagine that an unwieldy group is hard to manage, but at the same time they wanted to encourage a broader group at least for the constitution, the new constitution to be drafted. So I think that was a positive step. In terms of ambiguity, I would mention a couple of things. One of them is that what we tried to do was to actually study the Addis Ababa Agreement and look at where there were shortcomings and to try to overcome some of those. Of course, all agreements have their own context and you can't overcome everything, but one of the areas that we tried to make a difference in was by encouraging the parties to come up with this notion of the presidency. And this has been both a success and in some ways a failure because while we tried to encourage the collegial presidency and it's actually very specifically listed, it says there shall be established the institution of the presidency consisting of the president and two vice presidents. What we did was to spell out the specific responsibilities and functions of the two vice presidents and we said there should be a partnership and collegial decision-making process within the institution of the presidency in order to safeguard the peace agreement. Now, while we said this and the parties, this is what the parties agreed to, as Fink said, we have to remember this is the agreement that the parties created. We helped them with language, with suggestions, but ultimately this is what they decided upon. Now, where I think there have been some real misgivings in terms of the implementation has been that a lot of the ambiguity rested with decisions couldn't be made, we bump it up, the parties agreed, they would bump it up to the presidency because this was to be the collegial entity that would resolve all of the problems. And so that has been an area where I think the ambiguity has not often been resolved at the presidential level and one of those examples of course is Abye, where the parties had two very different views of the Abye boundary commission report and yet the presidency really couldn't make that decision and so ultimately it had to be solved through another political mechanism which was the arbitration and the arbitration court. And then lastly I wanted to talk a little bit about reconciliation. One of the things that we had put together, I mean, if you actually look at the Michakos protocol, the Michakos protocol is a broad framework for what we hope to include into the ultimate, what became ultimately the CPA, but it's an outline of the things that should be incorporated a final ceasefire, some sort of power sharing arrangement, some sort of resource sharing, separation of the militaries, etc. And one of the things that came out of that was we tried to encourage the parties to have some sort of a truth and reconciliation commission of sorts, you can call it whatever you like, but some sort of truth telling that would get to reconciliation of really these very hardened positions and animosity between two groups that had been fighting for a long time. And ultimately the best that the parties could do was to come up with a process and so as Fink said, a lot of the agreement is helping them find a way to get to a process that can ultimately resolve some of these issues. Unfortunately, it's one of the areas that the parties really didn't do very much with, even though it's very clearly in agreement that a process of reconciliation would be instituted by the parties, the details of which would be worked out, and it just never really got worked out. So that I think is quite a pity. And I think the only other thing I would like to add is we've talked a lot about the referenda, the referendum for southern Sudan, for the people of southern Sudan and the referendum in Abye. And one of the areas that is frequently not mentioned is the fact that the day after the vote takes place, since they're both supposed to occur on the same day, there's still six more months left in the CPA period. And that leads right into, I think, what Julian's going to talk about in terms of the implementation modalities and that period of arranging what kind of post-referenda period they will have, on what kind of basis will the CPA be the basis, will they create some new model, whether it's unity or secession, will there be some of the clauses of the CPA, will they continue in the north, will they continue in the south. You do have two constitutions and each state has its own constitution as well. They're interim until the referenda occur, but that hasn't been discussed much, although we talk a lot about the other modalities that have to be worked out. So I think I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Good morning. I must say it's a pleasure to be here five years and a half later and thinking about what we did then. And it's especially a pleasure to see General Sunbeil think and Susan again. Our paths have crossed off and on. It's the first time that we're sitting down and probably looking back at the CPA and thinking about what we did do then and how we did do it. I must also admit that we discussed what we were going to talk about last night and I went home and went to bed and woke up all of a sudden at about four in the morning and my goodness all of it came back like a flash, all of a sudden. Remember the best moments, remember the worst moments and to tell the truth. Still wondering what we did do right, what we did do wrong and to what extent we could have done better. And it's probably a weight that a mediator carries to the end of his days is this notion of we did something, we thought it was the best then, is it still the best five years later on? Well, we can question it. And to a certain extent I think we have to stick with the idea that we did at that moment what we thought was correct, the best and at the same time with the parties or to a certain extent for the parties hoping that it would help them. What I'm basically going to mention in a few minutes and I do have a lot to say I must admit is probably talk about the implementation because it is the element right now that influences the next steps. We got the peace agreement, it was signed, to tell the truth we had the peace agreement already back on the 26th of May 2004 and on purpose we prolongated the process for a while. What we did on purpose to a certain extent was say we don't want to repeat the mistakes that had been done in Addis with the Addis Agreement what we want to do is we want to consolidate that implementation. And we took another six months negotiating the implementation. A lot of people were surprised, they were saying but my goodness you've got the protocols, what's the use in negotiating this implementation? Let's get the protocol signed and then we'll see what we do next. And we were conscious that the parties were still marked or if you prefer traumatized by the Addis experience and the fact that there had been no implementation in that agreement they were convinced that if there wasn't an implementation in this one the potential risk was that it all end up like the Addis Agreement. So we took more time, we negotiated those implementation scales and if you look at the agreement out of the 241 pages of the agreement a good 30% are implementation scales and they weren't easy to negotiate. They weren't easy to negotiate for the very simple reason that the parties had chosen a technique of negotiation what is to negotiate protocols and once they had negotiated a protocol for example a well-sharing protocol they sealed it with their signatures and they were not keen on reopening it. So of course what we had by the end of the negotiations were a series of protocols that had been negotiated in sequence there had not been much trading off in between the protocols not to say very little and once we had to go look at the implementation we found ourselves pinned down with the details. What were the details exactly? How had they been understood by each party? To what extent did they understand the same thing? To what extent could they agree on what they had understood? And to what extent could we keep them focused and trying to figure out how to do the implementation without necessarily starting to unravel everything? And it was a hard time. It was a hard time also because techniques change. When you negotiate implementation you don't negotiate it the same way you negotiate the rest of the agreement. And you've got to bring more people on board you've got to work on it differently you've got to get the parties to stay focused on what is the implementation and at the same time not find yourself caught in a game with this tendency of saying let the other side implement and then we'll see what we implement and always towards a certain extent saying we're not responsible for what's being done and let someone else be held responsible. But I think the negotiations on the implementation did bring about one positive aspect and this was an aspect in which the parties really took possession of the document. They probably possessed it about 70, 75 or 80 percent but after the implementation it was their document and to a certain extent after having looked through it worked on it and draw the implementation models they had the feeling that they possessed it and it did belong to them and they were conscious that there was still a lot of work to be done. Within the implementation the difficult element were the protocols. We had content beyond what you can imagine. In peace processes what happens quite often is when you discuss and you negotiate you can still dream, you can imagine things but then when it comes to looking at the implementation you've got to concretely say what is going to be done, what can be done and how can it be done. And it's a sense of reality that's brought back on board and to a certain moment or certain occasions for the parties it's a shock it's a way of saying well now we have to concretely look at what we're going to do and how we're going to do it and I think the implementation in that sense probably was a shock for the parties but above all what we had difficulties in handling when we look back retrospectively was the mass of information just the quantity of information we had the richness of the protocols and to a certain extent how do you sequence them in such a way that there's some form of logic and what we were obliged to do was to establish an implementation matrix an implementation matrix that had to look at each protocol individually what had to be done in the Machacos protocol the first one signed in July 2002 what had to be done within the security arrangements which was not a complete protocol that had been signed in September 2003 what had to be done in between with, sorry or within the weather, the wealth sharing excuse me, protocol that was signed in January 2004 and finally the three conflict areas Abiyay, Korofan and the Southern Blue Nile not to mention the power sharing protocol that was signed in May 2004 all of this had to be combed through looked into, to a certain extent analyzed and shared out what we did find ourselves with was, as Fink mentioned, a lot of creative ambiguity we found ourselves also confronted with to a certain extent parties read their agreement differently and to a certain extent if we hadn't combed through this document we probably would have had more problems with the implementation later on than we did already then when we were trying to establish the matrix I also think the problem we came about was the problem that we had a lot of principles there were a lot of principles in the documents but not always a clear way in which they had to be applied and what they should be applied for one of the most difficult elements was when we were working on security issues was the joint integrated units these units that are combined forces made up of the Sudan armed forces and the SPLA that were supposed to coordinate their activities and at the same time be responsible for certain sectors of security in certain defined areas these joint integrated units due to the difference of perception have never worked they've been put together to tell the truth they sit in camps one next to the other but they totally ignore each other they sit back to back and just don't fulfill their mission as they should be fulfilling if I mention this it's to say to what point what we had to really do at a certain moment within this peace process and it remains for me one of the hardest aspects was we had to establish what I call a vision of society we were obliged within Sudan not only to say things have to change we can aspire to some federal model or some form of a democracy but we also had to say things have to change fundamentally and what we have to do is we have to establish a vision of Sudan where we're looking six years and a half down the road and we're saying we're going to try for unity and if we can't manage for unity we will have to accept that there might be separation a separation that will take place for a referendum and this was the hardest task of all without doubt now these are just running from one element to the other going along quite quickly to tell the truth but I would like to insist on one last aspect before I give back the floor and that is the aspect of saying we mustn't forget the CPA had a precise mission CPA's mission was to say it's to stop the war CPA's mission was to say we know what we will do the next six years and a half and then it's for the Sudanese to decide what they think will be best this option today is heading towards its final stage we've had six months of an interim period at the beginning what was to prepare for the six years of transition on the 9th of January we'll be entering the last phase which is another six months before the CPA should end and for the moment it's not clear what will happen the Sudanese have put out a law a law what they talk on the transition draft of southern Sudan and it's a referendum bill that they've established in 2009 in which they're very precise in saying they have to negotiate a series of key concepts to tell the truth they're 11 the first one being nationality the second one being currency the third one being public service the fourth one position which is under the liquidated combined units that are the famous joint integrated units I mentioned the national security and intelligence the international conventions and agreements the liabilities, the oil fields its production and transport contracts and environment in the oil fields water and finally ownership these topics and principle will have to be negotiated before the referendum takes place we're talking about 92 days away and already some people are saying well we'll have to push it back later on and negotiate it once the referendum has taken place these key elements if we look at them with the key elements that already figured within the peace agreement the CBA and the only thing we find ourselves is at a certain moment these issues coming back in the front and having to be looked at in different ways institutionally speaking Sudan is supposed to be is supposed to be heading and building up a federal model if it considered itself to have a federal model already back in 1920 or I'd say from 1989 on the truth is it's not a complete federal model and it's far from being an extensive better model the issue that will come about constitutionally speaking is will they look for a federal model or will they look for something else and to tell the truth we really don't know what to expect I think sincerely and this is just a personal point of view that within the CBA we did what we could do we mustn't forget as Fink said himself it's not the drafters who own the document the document doesn't belong to the drafters at best we can bring along some expertise some help and try to caress the parties in such a way that they can work on their issues and find what they think are their agreements our Sudanese friends found an agreement that has brought them up to where they are now and with luck I hope that will bring them further on but to think that this is the last step would be a mistake and to think that this is the last step with the solution would also be a mistake when I was working in Northern Ireland at a very initial stage in the talks about the talks we were sent there to stop the violence already then and one of the problems that came about was the problem of saying will these people be able to agree amongst themselves or not agree amongst themselves and we had gotten to a solution where we said there was a violence and we probably had to wait a generation that generation mark still is there for me and quite often I think peace processes bring about answers they continue to have to be worked on they bring more answers and to a certain extent you need to give time to time before you can say if it's a success or not a success so that's where we probably stand today I've talked my nine minutes so I'll stop there and I probably just went in with a joke I will kind of give a bit of a pragmatic insight about all of this poor Susan I just heard it more than once so I'm sorry about it my son, he's a young man now he's quite a big boy but when he was very small at school they asked him what his parents used to do or did and he said my mother, well she's a school teacher he explained where she taught and what she taught and as for my father well he's got a strange job he goes to these far away countries where people fight but you know no one listens to him so probably you shouldn't listen to me either thank you thanks very much let's open up for questions I had a question perhaps about kind of the importance of personalities within the talks we've talked about General Simbao's role as mediator John Garang obviously was a key power within that and then on the cartoon side died shortly after the CPA was signed and on the cartoon side the lead negotiator perhaps didn't kind of hold the same position following in the interim period and I just wonder we take a few at a time but I wonder if you might reflect on the role of key personalities and divisions within cartoon and within the SPLM perhaps following the CPA and during the negotiation of the CPA um let's open though for some questions we have one there my class is back on hello and thank you my name is Vicky kind of medias I'm with PILPG um so you all discuss both the idealistic and the pragmatic and my question is if the north does not or refuses to recognize the outcome of the referendum how will the international community respond will there be more mediation or will they attempt to enforce the results thank you okay Richard Soloya with the National Foreign Trade Council perhaps this is addressed to Secretary Page could you comment on the role of the U.S. sanctions as we approach this referendum uh yes my name is Marcus Sweeno I'm with the Department of State and until quite recently Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Cartoon um my question really is on the role of the United Nations um both in terms of what they have done up to date on this uh in mitigation between the north and the south but also to to the panel uh on what role they see during the referendum um I was in Cartoon during the April elections despite criticism I think the U.N. really had an admirable role in providing support for those elections and then finally in the post referendum period what what is reasonable to expect from Unmiss in terms of peacekeeping and other functions thank you um finally the D.C.M. and keeping mobile the second panel is also going to be looking a little bit forward so there's going to be some overlap between yes sir I would like first to my name for from embassy of Sudan uh this is a time to to say thank you and CSIS and uh journalism both today with us with one of the great people in the CPA history and uh the group of drafters and mediator here with us today uh in this moment I would like to ask what the role should be by the international community in this turning point we are heading to the uh referendum and many pressure were deployed on our country especially when mentioning the sanctions and the environment uh the countries moving towards this referendum where there is sanctions there's pressures and the country needs support in both now in the political side and on the development both in the south and the north and how the international community would would give the support in the development in the process and to pave the way for this critical moment in the history and I would like again to give our tribute to for this uh continuous support and the spirit to give the people of Sudan again a new moment for the the coming the coming critical time for the referendum and his mediation is still going on with his spirit thank you thank you Fatah let's uh go turn to the panel before we are I'm just going to answer two questions the question about I think is an important the question about John Garang is important and also the some might say many commentators pointed out that Taha's prestige diminished uh and power in Khartim for a while in an event and I think that alludes to the danger of writing the constitution or writing a sorry a peace agreement with personalities in mind um and I think Susan was correct in saying quite a few things in the constitution outstanding uh issues or potentially uh uh issues which could derail the process of the presidential council very specifically with the view that John Garang and Taha would be the ones dealing with it and so that's just a really a warning let me just deal secondly with the UN question you know when we started drafting the agreement and it's you can see it in the Machakos protocol it was considered that the evaluation of the agreement was a very important role in chipping the parties up to implement the agreement but by the time we signed off on the agreement both parties had lost interest uh in an institution outside their control or not owned by them uh um looking to the proper implementation of the agreement and as a result it became rather marginal um and I think for some time really went through the motions of performing its role as agreed off to the CPA CPA is not very full on what the UN's role should be but I have no doubt that they've thrown their weight fully into organizing the referendum they are really essentially involved in two processes the one which is to help the Sudanese physically administer the elections to get ballot boxes and ballots out secondly to provide security and there were certain aspects of the last elections and what transpired there in the south particularly which are worrying and which is certainly an indication uh that we would have to ensure that UNMAS will have to ensure as far as it can to provide the necessary security and stability in the region thirdly the secretary general has just appointed a high level panel headed by president Mkhapa it's a three person panel and its intention is to be quite separate from the administration of the elections but to be a panel which can perform two functions both which both parties recognized and in fact requested the UN to establish a mechanism to perform and that was firstly to chivvy the parties to behave properly during the election recognizing that they have limited purchase on each other uh if the north tells the south want to do it's not necessarily the south will jump and and vice versa so to have a high level panel which can talk directly to the parties and secondly to ensure that the election as far as possible through their monitoring role is free of intimidation and can be certified as such and I know the northerners in particular have a concern that if there is rampant intimidation in the south uh northerners will challenge the results and may well could well feel that they can't respect the result so everybody has an interest in intimidation free and a violence free election both in the north and in the south if only for the purposes of that certification okay um let me just let me first answer the question about how will the international community respond based on the outcome um I think that this is where it's really important to remember that this is actually a Sudanese agreement that was brokered supported by whatever you want to call it by EGAD um which had support from the rest of the international community um as General Sunbe will mention there are a number of uh of countries and institutions that signed up as witnesses um Julie and I have our copies of the CPA here with us um you can see the difference Julian's looks very pristine and mine is all battered um I don't know what that says but but um there were a number of countries um obviously the Sudanese and then uh Kenya Uganda Egypt Italy, Netherlands Norway UK US European Union Norway twice in a different way in Italy twice as the co-chairs of the international EGAD partners forum secretary general of the Arab League and the UN so these are all the countries that signed up as witnesses truth be told we actually had to send the language out and make sure that people could the countries could sign up to it um as witnesses and not as guarantors because they didn't want to have to enforce something that perhaps they weren't ready to take on that said um I think that as has been spoken about already the fact that the UN held this high level meeting last month in New York on the margins of the UN at the presidential level I mean President Obama made a very directed speech where he said what at least how our administration feels that it's absolutely essential that the referendum are held on time and that they respect the will of the Sudanese voters as Julian read out they still haven't determined citizenship issues who's going to vote in either of the referendum so these are things that are still really challenging we've already discussed some of the African Union countries but the whole idea was really to get the international community behind something that they already have signed up to help the parties get to and um while it may be a tricky subject and a touchy subject to to talk about a possible civil divorce or whatever we want to call it this was made specifically in the CPA with the focus being on unity and the emphasis being on unity but if that can't work they have this other alternative so I think the international community as General Sunbe will mention is kind of waking up a little bit belatedly but nonetheless I think that they will support at least following through with helping the Sudanese get through to the end of the CPA obligations before I comment on sanctions because I think it's probably actually better for the second panel which will have congress as well as congressional representatives as well as Tim Shortley the deputy special envoy to General Gratian but let me just mention I think also in terms of the personalities I think it was really quite critical and although I do believe it's problematic to make things base too much on personalities I also don't think we would be where we are if we had not had the courageous leadership of both Vice President Taha and John Goreng and I don't think either of those can be underestimated. What Kenya did was to take an extreme risk in inviting Vice President Taha and Dr. John Goreng to Naivasha we had a secret location that even we didn't know about and John Goreng had stood up Vice President Taha before so there was no guarantee that he was actually going to show up and Vice President Taha waited for several days before we finally did manage to convince I mean we all collectively four days before before Dr. John Goreng showed up in Naivasha but they had an amazing relationship they figured out how they could work out their own issues and their own deals to take into account look my constituency needs this my constituency needs this how can we work that out so that I give you something as General always said something you can live with not your maximum position but can you live with this and I don't think that we would be in this position if we hadn't had that unbelievable dedication and once the two of them came together really we took much more back seat position and the parties themselves really drove the process from that point forward two quick things though one I would say in terms of un-miss just to add on to what Fink has said there are two additional bits un-miss operates under the Security Council mandate under the Security Council resolution which established the peacekeeping mission so it has all these different functions that are included in the mandate and then maybe Fink you want to add a little bit about former President Tabo and Becky who is also leading up sort of this implementation panel which is helping the parties and then just on sanctions this is an issue we can have the debate about whether sanctions are effective anywhere and I think that my government has put in place and they have been in place for some time we know that it troubles the Sudanese and others but I don't think that that's going to change anytime soon but I'll let the Special Envoy's office and the second panel address that thanks Julian I'll probably come back to the issue of personalities when you're being trained as a mediator you're always told you've got to make abstraction or you've got to ignore the personalities and you must never build your agreement or any form of negotiation around personalities but the truth is you've got no choice you might want to build up a process in which you'll see personality shouldn't be that important or eventually if personality should disappear they can easily be replaced by someone else but the truth is that you can look at any process that has taken place in the last 20 years and the figures and personalities come about now some personalities change during the process some personalities might disappear during the process but the truth is you find yourself always confronted with the issue of personalities and how you're going to deal with it now you can have personalities who can be excellent leaders or guerrilla leaders if you prefer or fighters or run organizations when it comes to mediation they're not that great you can also have other commanders that are excellent fighters and to a certain extent might be good mediators too and know how to negotiate but it doesn't mean they're excellent at the implementation at the end of the day and so what you find yourself quite often with is personalities at certain moments according to the phases you're going through they have their importance but it's rare that a personality can say from 8 to Z has been the common person that has carried things forward so take a quick round of us a quick second round we'll take maybe 2 or 3 maximum we'll keep them short yes the gentleman here my name is Amad I'm from Sudan Embassy my question for Susan Bech how can you describe the role of the United States in positively or negatively in supporting the SPLA military supporting the SPLA and the South and training and while imposing sanctions against the North Sudan okay and Mike Phelan from the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee good morning Mike Phelan Senate Foreign Relations Committee my question goes to the three of you as experienced negotiators if you could inform us from your experience to what degree this brinksmanship is the final necessary element to move to conclusive decisions by the parties in this case we're looking at 100 days and there are others counting it down day by day and yet we still as you just mentioned have not concluded some of the essential decisions on the way to the referendum the parties in follow-up to that have the parties already decided what their path is going to be regardless okay we'll come back to you Abdul Kerim Usman from the Royal Military College of Canada giving the volatile situations that everybody describing how much control does Juba has over SPLA forces and what their view of Khartoum ability to control their own giving what we hear about the disasters that would happen after the referendum my question might be addressed to the general thanks let me just deal with the one question which is the question of the brinksmanship and what are we going to do with the issues which haven't been resolved yet I think it's absolutely inevitable that these issues are not going to be properly resolved by the time of the referendum but the South has made it clear that they have insisted and are insisting that the elections be held on time and they have and have stated a deep fear that if they allow any shift in the date it will be the beginning of a process of opening up the CPA and so from their perspective they'd rather say let's have the referendum and then continue with the resolving the rest of the issues which have to be decided sorry I was asked a question about Unmus the referendum period I'd like to say just two things firstly I think it's inevitable that the United Nations are not just Unmus I think the entire system including the development arms are going to necessarily be involved in the South and I say that regardless of the way in which the South votes I think the South really does need capacity building and needs all the assistance but having said that I think the Northerners have expressed the view that they also need some assistance and that there shouldn't just be a process of concentrating on the South and just abandoning the North there are real issues just notice that today we haven't mentioned the D word at all we've conducted this entire conversation without referring to Darfur that might be one of the issues when I talk spoke about gaps that were deliberately left out of the agreement the mention of the D word was certainly one of those okay just to follow up a little bit on Fink's mention of Darfur one thing in terms of maybe partly brinksmanship but I would just say that we were specifically asked not to deal with Darfur in the CPA which obviously makes it not a comprehensive peace agreement and as has been mentioned in numerous think tank pieces peace P E A C E in pieces P I E C E S so I think this is just a reality we have the eastern Sudan peace agreement we have Darfur what one thinks about the Darfur peace agreement we have the CPA so we are constrained by what we're allowed to do as mediators or supporters of a process I agree also with Fink the end of the day in terms of brinksmanship I mean there were a number of times during the CPA negotiations it's already been said that the timing was right but it was right for resolution and I think for a number of reasons that were really mentioned in Steve Morrison's over sort of setting the stage and then Jennifer's introduction where you had really a combination of events all occurring around the same time nonetheless there were still moments when clashes flared up even though we had a cessation of hostilities or where events took place and our colleagues here all remember suitcases just kind of going down the hallway and we were suddenly informed that one side or the other side was leaving so brinksmanship was I think always a part of the negotiations and I think that now that the issues are so serious and so real they're going to be there again in terms of the US government's support of the SPLA in terms of military training while at the same time having sanctions on the north I think we have to be realistic about the times that we're living in in the United States there have been a number of conferences talking about Sudan and what can be done it's vital I think that we have had the role of the international NGOs and what not keep people informed and on their toes but at the same time it has also constrained I think the space and as everyone knows it's been very difficult to figure out where the US should be coming down on where the general already mentioned the ICC indictment we end up spending a lot of our time on should Bashir have been invited to Kenya should he have been invited to Chad should he have been received we're not signatories to the Rome Statute I mean it's all of this is a little schizophrenic but at the same time we've had a long role of engagement with the south and sanctions don't apply in them so I'm not trying to make an excuse but I think we have to deal with the reality that's in front of us and I think a lot of people took a tremendous hit if you would say from the US administration both past and present for wanting to actually deal with the government in the north and others saying we should never deal with this government because they've been accused of genocide so it has been a tough situation to navigate and I think that has put successive special envoys in a very difficult position as well. I don't think this is the last word Jeff before I answer your question whether the government of southern Sudan is in charge of the SPLA or whether the north is in charge of SAF I want to say this that although these are being referred to as drafters they just are not really drafters they are mediators in their own right part of they represented and I think they did more than just draft I'm trying to tell you that they were able to engage the parties they negotiated with the parties as mediators and therefore I think you should not go with the notion that these people are just people who drafted things with the parties they had to get positions from the parties and mold them and help them and they are not the only ones Charles Snyder here from the Troika side where we are doing their own mediation too in one way or another and quite a number the Italians of course they got people themselves so let's make no mistakes we provided the leadership and this was we even met ourselves as secretariat there wasn't anything like that but we did make ourselves a secretariat that ran the process so I want these people are more than just drafters they were more mediators too as far as the issue of remember I don't live in Sudan I live in Kenya so if I tell you anything about control or no control it's just from my perspective from perception it's the way I see it yes I think both sides are in control of their armies but from what we've seen in the past in Africa no political power or political system is totally in control of an army so the army can run amok and there is nothing there is no way you can stop it there is nothing the people in Juba can do SAF can run amok and there is nothing people in the north can do about it it's just that the army has to be loyal to the authorities but there is no way you can control them you can tell them do this yes they will do it but what happens if you get people who believe and I think on both sides there are elements that could easily be loose cannons thank you on that ominous note let's bring this panel to a close thank you very much I think resource persons really doesn't do it when you talk about the folks here at this panel thanks for your insights we're going to move quickly to the next panel so please remain in your seats and we'll move over thanks again