 One, two. Is that what you needed? Good afternoon. My name's Jennifer Cooke. I'm director of the Africa program here at CSIS. And I want to welcome you all to this panel today on the way forward on Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement. We have a terrific panel today to talk about the challenges ahead, how to move the process forward. And I think that the agreement which is facing particular challenges in these coming years is at a critical moment. Just to start, I think the CPA was always understood to be a starting point in a long process. There were limitations to the agreement. I think these were acknowledged and recognized really from the very beginning that this was a limited agreement initially between the two belligerent parties to end what was at the time the hot conflict within Sudan between the SPLM and cartoon. And it was understood that that was limited, but this was meant to be, as I said, a starting point. And to tackle the larger problems of a transformation of Sudan, you needed to end that particular conflict first and then begin a process of political transformation. So the weaknesses, I think, and the limitations of the agreement were well understood at the very beginning. It was understood at the very beginning that the process of transformation and implementation of the CPA would require a great deal of international stewardship, hand-holding, brow-beating, and pushing both parties to live up to the commitments they made within the CPA. And arduous as the process was and as detailed as the final agreement was, I think much of the vision within the CPA was held in the minds of some of the principal negotiators, most notably John Gurang and Taha. And I think with the passing of John Gurang, there was lost a great deal of the vision for the ultimate implementation of the CPA. Part of what we're going to hear today, I think, is an assessment of where we stand in the implementation process of this, what the looming challenges are. And now as we stand at the beginning of a new administration here in the United States, what are the critical issues that this next administration is going to have to pick up? A perfect implementation of the CPA is very unlikely or a complete implementation of the CPA. But what are those critical red lines that must be followed through? And what are the greatest threats? And how can we preempt or mitigate those threats to the CPA? So let me introduce the panel. You have their bios, so I won't go into great detail, but we're very pleased to have Sir Derek Plumley here, who's come just for this event a very long way. Sir Derek is chair of the Sudan Assessment and Evaluation Commission since 2008, so he's fairly new to the CPA process, but not new to the region at all. He was UK ambassador to Egypt and to Saudi Arabia, and he's been director of the Middle East and North Africa at the UK Foreign Office. He is highly respected within the British FCO, as I've heard from many of his colleagues, and we're delighted to have him here. We're also using this occasion to highlight and profile the launch of a Chatham House report, which was authored by Dr. Edward Thomas, who's with us today, the report called Against the Gathering Storm, Securing Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement. I think there are a number of copies available, and I'm sure you can find information on how to get more on the Chatham House website as well. Eddie has spent a long time in Sudan since the mid-'80s. He was a teacher in northern Sudan. He's worked with Sudanese refugee groups, and he'll talk a little bit about the methodology and the recommendations of his most recent report. Next, we have Ambassador Andrew Nazios. I think most of you who know, he is today on the faculty of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. And he was most relevant here, special envoy to Sudan from December 06 to September 07, where he worked, indefatigably, on very complicated and often frustrating circumstances. He was also the administrator of USID and formally served as director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. Again, his biosphere, he has many more accomplishments that I won't go into. And then Alex Daval, who is a great friend of CSIS. He's program director at the Social Science Research Council in New York. He's been engaged on Sudan and on Darfur, in particular, probably longer than most people in this room. He's been a director of Justice Africa in London, and he's been a tireless advocate and analyst for the way forward in Sudan. So with that, I will turn to Sederik Plumlee, and we'll then, who will give the keynote, we'll then have presentations and open it as quickly as we can for question and answers from the audience. Well, Jennifer, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to update on the CPA and for giving me the opportunity to come to Washington as well. It's much appreciated. Thank you. I think the meeting is timely, not just because of what's going on here in Washington and the impending change of administration, or indeed because of what may or may not happen in The Hague, but because it coincides almost exactly with the fourth anniversary of the signature of the CPA, which was marked in Malakal in southern Sudan last weekend, and thus with the beginning of the final and decisive two years of the six-year interim period set for CPA implementation in the agreement. And it sounds it's a bit trite to say so, but the CPA, it's worth stating, I think at the beginning, was a historic achievement in the sense that it ended Africa's longest-running civil war and the one which was possibly most costly in terms of loss of life and retired development. I'm very conscious of the weight of experience on the rest of the discussions on this panel and defer to it, but particularly, I would commend to you Edward Thomas' report on securing Sudan's comprehensive peace agreement, which I think sets out the background and the way things have developed very clearly and very well. My own perspective is very much that of a diplomat who's tasked with protecting the CPA and helping as best I can as best the commission I chair can to secure its effective implementation. The AEC, which gets a somewhat modest write-up in Edward's report, brings together the parties, they sit in on everything, as full members, along with the governments which supported the signature, witnessed the signature of the CPA, and supported the preceding negotiations, including, of course, the United States, and the international organizations which witnessed it, the African Union, the Arab League, the UN, and the EU. It's tasked with monitoring and supporting the agreement, and particularly so, particularly producing a report at the midterm in CPA implementation, which was the point reached in July last year. And so to a certain extent, what I have to say now is drawn out of that report, because it is an agreed assessment by the parties and by members of the commission. But what I say also reflects my own personal views of the way things have gone, and particularly so, of course, in respect to the last six months. The evaluation report noted that the CPA has been resilient in the sense that peace has been preserved between North and South, that the ceasefire has largely, I stress the word largely, but has largely held, the institutions of government provided for in it, and notable amongst these, of course, all those institutions in the South, the government of Southern Sudan, the autonomous government there, have been created and sustained, and revenue from oil produced in the South has been shared. And as a result of the agreement, some 2 million refugees and IDPs have been able to return to their homes in Southern Sudan. Against that, mistrust has persisted, fed by delays, partial, non-implementation of parts of the agreement. We could spend a lot of time attributing blame for that. In part, I think it's attributable to the complexity of the agreement, as Jennifer was pointing out. It was a very large task, really, to put in place all of the institutions and to pursue all of the provisions, which are there in the various protocols of the agreement. But as a consequence of these delays, many of the elements in the sort of CPA structure, which one might have considered essential to the success of, or success in achieving the objective of making unity attractive. A National Civil Service Commission, for example, or the National Committee on the Rights of Non-Muslims in the National Capital, or a program of national reconciliation and healing, or Human Rights Commission. These have either been set up belatedly and not fully resourced, or in the case of the Human Rights Commission, for example, haven't yet seen the light of day at all. Disatisfaction with the progress achieved led the SPLM to suspend its participation in the Government of National Unity in 2007. They came back into Government just over a year ago, and since they resumed participation, some significant milestones have been passed. The census, which is a CPA requirement, took place, albeit with Southern reservations in April and May of last year. The Oslo Donors Conference, the follow-up to the initial Oslo Conference, which was held three years on, was held in May 2 and was a success. There was fighting, serious fighting, which you'll about to be aware and abye, just after that. But in the wake of it, the parties moved to draw up a roadmap with tight deadlines for the establishment of interim arrangements in the area, and provision for the underlying dispute taken to international arbitration. Legislation providing a framework for elections at all levels in Sudan in 2009, as provided for in the CPA, was adopted in July, and the National Electoral Commission was appointed after a further delay, but in November. So there was progress during the course of last year, but it was intermittent and, at times, painfully slow. What I'd like to focus on here now, I think, is just five areas, five specific subjects. I mean, the CPA is, as I said, complex, and all of the provisions interlock with each other, and lack of success in some is likely to impact other aspects of the agreement. But nonetheless, five areas, which are crucial, I think, for there to be a chance of success in the coming two years. The five subject areas in question are the three areas, that is to say, Abye, Southern Kordifan, and Blue Nile, which is subject to specific protocols of their own under the CPA. Border demarcation, security sector reform, developments in the security sector, particularly, elections, and the 2011 referendum and what happens after it. With regard to Abye, the highest profile of the three areas, the immediate priority is to ensure full implementation of the roadmap. It has proceeded, that implementation, more or less has agreed, but with deadlines which have slipped, against deadlines which have slipped seriously. The final step in SAF withdrawal from the DIFRA oil field has still to be taken, SAF, the Sudan Armed Forces. A shooting incident last month in Abye, between elements in the Joint Integrated Unit and the Joint Integrated Police Unit, two units which have been put in place to take over security from the withdrawing forces of the SAF and the SPLA, underlined their continued vulnerability, the continued vulnerability of these units and the need for material support and training. The interim administration which has been put in place lacks of budget, and this is something which we in the AEC have been working on rather closely in the last week or two to try to encourage the administration and the government to get together and to agree what is needed. All of this needs to be put in place quickly, if IDPs are to return, and if there is to be any sort of foundation in place at the point at which the Permanent Court of Arbitration reports in June. At that point, in preparation for that, in my view, it would be wise really for the parties actually to engage in discussion now on arrangements for the longer term to implement the Abye protocol, which would hold whatever is the result of the arbitration process. As in the case of Abye, volatility in southern Kordiffan could threaten the CPA, the AEC visited areas in the state in November, and we were made aware of the anger felt by many in the former SPLA-controlled areas in the Newper Mountains, and indeed by others, including in majority Missaria areas, and neglect since the CPA was signed in 2005. Power sharing there has been torturous and aid and government funding inadequate. We heard differing assessments of the trend in security incidents, but all agreed that the state is awash with arms and the risk of violence real. There has been positive movement in the past six months in the shape of security agreements between the parties, which have resulted in the opening of the formerly SPLA-controlled areas, redeployments south by the SPLA units concerned, and moves to absorb and integrate the former SPLM, SPLA, police and civil service. But the fragility of the process was illustrated if that were needed in the past few days by an incident involving former SPLA elements, again in the JRU and government paramilitaries. The SPLM in the state feel vulnerable and fear reinforcement of government forces. Confidence-building measures and funding in support of integration are essential if security and stability are to be achieved. Unmiss and the international community need to encourage and support the integration process. The second priority is demarcation of the North-South border, which is now more than three years overdue. We have been told repeatedly in the AAC by the parties that the report of the technical committee, which has been working on this, it's always almost ready for submission to the presidency. But when it is, work will then be needed. Work on presentation to ensure that demarcation is understood as disadvantaging nobody and that the border is open in every sense of the word. And I think to resolve remaining points of difference, it should be moved forward now. Further delay will prolong uncertainty and tension in disputed areas and impact CPA implementation across a wide range of issues from redeployment to elections to the referendum. The third priority I mentioned relates to the security sector and the issues here are of course various and I haven't got time to go into all of them. But the persistence of mistrust between the parties is reflected in high defence expenditure and the concentration of forces in the border areas. The government in the south has another security challenge in the shape of the availability of arms there and is engaged both in efforts to disarm civilians and also to professionalise the SPLA. In the AEC, working collectively, we have honed in on really two issues. One is the need for support for the JIUs which I've mentioned, which are important and which are starved of equipment, training, you name it, they don't have it. And the other priority is a major programme of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration as envisaged in the CPA. That programme is now moving. If it were implemented in full, then 80,000 people and their communities would benefit. But wisely, I think, UNMIS and the Northern and Southern DDR Commissions have chosen to proceed in stages, starting with what looked like the areas of greatest vulnerability and volatility, specifically Blue Nile and Southern Côte d'Fan, two of the three areas that I mentioned earlier. And we have been working with UNMIS to try to resolve donor questions about this and just last week the Japanese came forward with the first major pledge for the DDR programme. Successful handling of these three priorities, which in itself is a major challenge, that's to say the three areas, border demarcation and security issues, is essential if the CPA is to move forward successfully over the next two years and a return to violence avoided. Getting the remaining ones, elections and preparations for 2011 right, will determine the future of Sudan. Under the CPA, the constitution and the electoral law, elections should be held before July 2009. Taking the rainy season into account, this could mean they're having to be held in the next four months. The parties are working on bringing relevant legislation, the press and security laws, primarily, into line with the CPA, and the National Electoral Commission is working with urgency on issues related to its own organisation and funding. The preparations have yet to begin for a new electoral register, for any sort of public awareness campaign, and for the drawing up of constituency boundaries, which of course would be dependent both on the demarcation of the border, which hasn't yet taken place, and in theory at least on census results, which are still to be announced and likely to be controversial. There's also the issue of how Darfur should be represented when the election takes place. The task of identifying feasible dates in 2009 has been lies, squarely and squarely, with the National Electoral Commission and the parties. And I don't think that any of the problems I've mentioned though large are insuperable. Successful elections are central to the democratic transformation envisaged in the CPA, and arguably offer the best prospect of making unity attractive. But they will need careful preparation and international support, both in terms of technical and financial assistance and monitoring, when they take place. The fifth and final priority area, to which I'd like to draw attention, is the need to begin now to prepare for 2011. The CPA envisaged passage in the third year of the interim period of the legislation needed to make arrangements for the referendum which will enable the people of southern Sudan to exercise their right to self-determination. The right and the referendum itself lie at the heart of the CPA. The parties are now agreed to try, at least, to finalise the referendum law before the present assembly is dissolved, the present national assembly is dissolved, i.e. before the preparations for the elections take off. If that were to be achieved, it would be, I think, an important reassurance to the Southerners who feel that they may lose their blocking minority in the next assembly, possibly as a result of the census. There is a second aspect to this that is to say to the preparations for the referendum in 2011. The AEC's remit is to help make unity attractive. But anybody who's spent any length of time in the south of Sudan recently will know that the possibility of a vote for secession is real. Equally, however, the fundamental interdependence of north and south Sudan is self-evident, as is the need for both to continue to work together in peace. I think probably on this issue, the best thing to do is actually to repeat the message that we agreed in the midterm evaluation as regards the importance of the parties using the remainder of the interim period to discuss and develop links and arrangements across the political, economic, energy and security fields which look beyond 2011 and will hold whatever the outcome of the referendum. The mutual interest in a long-term, well-sharing deal in particular is obvious given the extent of interdependence in the sector and the degree of reliance both of the government in Khartoum and the government of national unity and the government of southern Sudan on oil income. Discretely encouraging dialogue on this is amongst the most important things the international community can do in the remainder of the interim period. Other deadlines in CPA implementation have slipped, but 2011 is one which, given the nature of the agreement and the strength of a sentiment, cannot. During the reconciliation event in Malikal, both President Bashir and First Vice President Salvekir from their different perspectives concentrated on the narrowing window with the President reaffirming the commitment to self-determination but also setting out steps a committee on a program of national reconciliation development projects along the border and then the south designed to make unity attractive. We could talk at length within the parties, but my belief is that both in their different ways are concerned to stick with the CPA through the remaining two years of the interim period. For all the mistrust, they need each other. But the agenda is dauntingly full both of outstanding business, notably I think I would highlight talking of red lines, the ABA arbitration and its successful handling and border demarcation and also full of a concentration of transformational events elections at all levels from the Presidential down to the State Assembly. Popular consultation in Blue Nile and Southern Coordefine provided for in their protocols with regard to the future of governance in the States and the referendum in ABA as well as that in the site itself. And all of these will require careful management. They're also going to require a degree of international backing and support. Indeed, I think you could say the process of negotiating the CPA was achieved with strong international support and a strong international presence. The need for coordinated international facilitation and encouragement will be at its greatest in the two years that are upcoming. Unmiss, the physical presence physical manifestation of the international community on the ground will be called on to take on new roles in support of elections along the border perhaps if and when demarcation takes place. I think it's worth asking how the activity of the International Criminal Court affects all of this. The answer must be that it depends in significant part on the governments and organizations who gather every month, almost every week actually in different formats around the AEC table including the United States including also both the movements which are represented in the Government in the North and in the South of Sudan all may come under pressure to react to developments in ways which are unlikely to advance the accountability agenda but could undermine opportunities for cooperation in support of the CPA and it will in my view be important for the members of the international community most concerned, whatever happens to find ways to signal their determination to stay engaged with both parties in support of development in security in the South areas and in support of the broader purposes of the CPA early appointment of a special envoy here with that sort of mandate but would be one such signal. I hope that a key message that people will take away from this meeting will be one of the centrality of the CPA itself to peace in Sudan. Without peace between North and South there could be no prospect of peace in the country more generally as Edward Thomas paper makes clear the CPA provides the framework within which the aspirations of other regions and parties in Sudan can be realised. Decentralisation the constitution and the specific possibilities opened up by elections this year. Some of the CPA institutions in waiting the Human Rights Commission or the National Land Commission for example could I am sure be crafted in such a way as to address imperatives in other peace processes. The SPLM along with others in Sudan needs to be enabled to play its part in the search for peace in Sudan but I will just end on one note of caution and that is that it would in my view be rash in the extreme to think in the context of an all Sudan approach the country is right of reopening the CPA in order to accommodate the approach. Peace between North and South and the opportunities it has opened up in the South and the areas affected by the Civil War remains an enormous prize. The agreement may not have been implemented fully as Jennifer said but or as its authors intended but the balance within it remains very delicate and this late stage is not the moment we are in. Thank you.