Address to NDA-LC Meeting by Dr John Garang de Mabior SPLM/A Chairman

‘- Asmara, Eritrea: July 14, 2004

Greetings and Opening Remarks

Your Excellency Molana Mohammed Osman al Mirghani, Chairman NDA, Uztaz Joseph Ukel, NDA inside, Secretary General Amin Mohamed Saeed and the Eritrean Brothers and Sisters present, Distinguished Members of the NDA Leadership Council (NDA-LC), I greet you all. I would like to begin by saluting and thanking President Isaiass Afewerki and the government, party and people of Eritrea for their principled and historical solidarity with the Sudanese people and support of the NDA.

First, I give my sincere apologies to the Chairman and to all of you in the Leadership Council and Secretariat for my delay. This was due to circumstances beyond my control. I had two major events that delayed me:

– I Visited eleven different locations in Equatoria, Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Nuba Mountains to explain the peace agreement, and this took me ten days more than expected due to time of the year and vastness of the country.

– Secondly, I had scheduled a major Traditional Leaders and Chiefs’ Conference that was to follow the visits and this took seven days more than scheduled. This conference was attended by 480 traditional leaders and chiefs; it was the first of its kind in the Sudan, and I could not leave before the end of the conference.

– These two events plus the difficulty of transport combined to cause the delay and I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

Let me also take the opportunity to greet and salute all those countrymen and women who are struggling for a New Sudanese political dispensation of democracy, freedom, justice, human rights and prosperity for all Sudanese. I salute and greet the people of Eastern Sudan, the Beja, Rashaida and all other citizens of Eastern Sudan.

I take the opportunity to greet all the Sudanese people and wish them well in this difficult time of the challenges of peace and management of the change that peace necessarily entails. I also want here to express and signal our deep concern and apprehension about Darfur and the desperate humanitarian situation facing the civil population of Darfur, and call for urgent and just political settlement to this horrific situation so that we achieve comprehensive peace and usher our country into a new era of holistic peace, stability, development and prosperity for all.

I also take this opportunity to salute and express my solidarity with the Sudanese Woman who continues to experience exceptional suffering at all times and in all parts of our country. As I have always said, women are the “marginalized of the marginalized”. Women must be accorded full and equal rights, education and all other opportunities. Similarly, I greet all our youth all over the country, inside and in the Diaspora to prepare themselves for the responsibilities of building the new post conflict Sudan, which they shall inherit as their birthright.

We will of course discuss the peace agreement signed between the SPLM/A and the NCP Government, but in this opening session I would like to make the following remarks about the said peace agreement.

1. The Peace Agreement should be read in the following context:

(I) It will achieve three cardinal objectives of the NDA:-

a) Ending the war.

b) Achieving democratic transformation of the country

c) Achieving effective decentralization of power from the centre to the States and Regions and thus ending marginalization which has been the main cause of wars in the Sudan

(II) It will create the necessary environment for stability, democracy, rendering basic services and development.

(III) It will mark a fundamental paradigm shift from the old paradigms and parameters of governance and political, economic and social relations to new ones. This paradigm shift is going to be a process and not an event, a process that will involve all Sudanese and all Sudanese political forces.

2. Regarding the NDA and the peace process I would like to make the following observations:

(I) Peaceful solution is one of the NDA means for transforming the situation in the Sudan. The IGAD Peace Process, Jeddah and the Joint Egyptian Libyan Initiative constitute part of the NDA attempt to effect change and transition to peace and democracy in the Sudan over the past ten years.

(II) When we talk about inclusiveness, national consensus and durable peace, the NDA members constitute an important segment of the Sudanese body politics that no one can possibly ignore, and so the NDA will definitely play its legitimate role in the peace process and in its implementation, and how this is done will constitute the subject matter of this meeting.

(III) The SPLM sees no room to implement a peace agreement without democratic transformation that will allow the popular participation and for the people to determine themselves in order to achieve a voluntary unity.

(IV) The partnership that came as a result of this agreement should be seen through the parameters of inclusiveness of the agreement and it is a partnership that is based on including others and it is partnership for??..and not against??.. Although the NCP and the SPLM will be the major partners in this partnership, all the Sudanese political forces shall be involved in this partnership and this is adequately reflected in the power sharing arrangements as well as in the other five protocols.

(V) The agreement will avail new democratic tools to administer the contradictions between the different political forces and peaceful exchange of power.

(VI) There is need a national programme which will address the socio-economical, cultural and political issues of the transitional period on the basis of national consensus.

(VII) The comprehensive peace agreement and stability require correct and just resolution of the conflict in Darfur, and equally to that in Eastern Sudan and all over the Sudan. The SPLM stands for a peaceful solution of Darfur conflict and call upon the international community to exert more efforts in order to extend humanitarian assistance and to put an end to the human rights violations. And in this regard, allow me to salute my colleagues in the SLM/A, who are attending this meeting of Leadership Council for the first time.

(VIII) Finally, the SPLM support the negotiations between the Government and the NDA on the basis of Jeddah Declaration.

In closing, again please accept my apologies for the delay, and allow me to congratulate you, the members of the NDA Leadership Council for the successful conclusion of the Naivasha IGAD peace process, and thank you for the confidence you put in the SPLM/A and in me personally when you delegated the SPLM/A to negotiate both on its own behalf and on behalf of the NDA. We have negotiated and signed six five protocols in Naivasha over the last ten months plus the Machakos Protocol of July 2002. These six protocols constitute the core peace agreement. What remain outstanding are only two technical annexes: One on a comprehensive cease-fire agreement and the other on implementation modalities. This agreement does not belong to the SPLM/A alone or to the South, as I said earlier it includes the NDA and all other Sudanese political forces as well and it belongs to the Sudanese people as a whole. I believe that this agreement represents the last chance to save and renew the unity of our country on a voluntary and new basis.

I am aware that there are many rumors and concerns within the NDA and among the Sudanese people about what has been signed in Naivasha and Machakos and what it means to the NDA and to the Sudanese people. These issues and concerns are the subject matter of this NDA-LC meeting, and we will addressed them exhaustively so that there is complete transparency and to combat rumors, lies and disinformation from any quarters with facts and the reality of the political situation as it evolves and unfolds. I thank you very much.