Agrégateur de flux

January 6, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The Justice and Equality Movement Friday denied statements by Sudanese presidential aide that an agreement has been reached with two Darfur rebel movements on major issues at informal meetings held recently.

Chief negotiator of JEM & SLM-MM delegation Ahmed Tugud and his delegation member Sayed Sharif (C) seen after a meeting with the mediation, while the government chief negotiators listens to unidentified interlocutors on Sunday November 22, 2015 (ST Photo)

JEM, Sudan Liberation Movement-Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM) and the Sudanese government last held several informal consultations meetings in Addis Ababa and Doha brokered by Uganda and U.S. special envoy for two Sudans, and Qatar.

Following his meeting with the UN Secretary-General Special Envoy, Nicholas Haysom on Wednesday, Sudanese Presidential Assistant Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid said the “government, in informal meetings held earlier, has reached an agreement with Darfur rebels on the major issues and we hope to settle the issue completely in the coming rounds of talks”.

JEM Chief Negotiator Ahmed Tugod Lissan denied that they had reached any compromise with the government since the end of the peace talks brokered by the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP).

"The Movement did not meet at all - either alone or jointly with the SLM-MM - with a National Congress Party (NCP) delegation to discuss any outstanding issues related to the cessation of hostilities or to the negotiations between the parties since the last round under the auspices of the AUHIP in Addis Ababa," Tugud said.

"We are not surprised that a leading NCP member lies because lying is part of their political methods," to cover up the massacres committed by their militiamen or the failure of the dialogue process, he added

In their last meeting from 9 to 14 August 2016, the government, JEM and SLM-MM discussed the signing of a cessation of hostilities agreement and a humanitarian access agreement. The two deals are part of confidence building measures conceived by the mediation to pave the way for an inclusive national dialogue conference inside Sudan.

However the parties diverged on the location sites of rebel fighters and mechanisms for the monitoring of humanitarian assistance. Also, the two groups raised the release their prisoners from the Sudanese jails and the need to open the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) for discussions.

At the time, the AUHIP criticized the position of the two armed groups saying they “re-opened numerous issues that had previously been agreed and others which contradicted the Roadmap Agreement”. Also the mediation disclosed they refused the options the mediation proposed on the location sites of fighter.

In a bid to break the deadlock, U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan, Donald Booth, and before him President Yoweri Museveni organized informal and separate consultations meetings with the parties to narrow the gaps between them.

Also, Qatari Deputy Prime Minister tasked with the implementation of the DDPD Ahmad bin Abdullah Al Mahmoud and the head of UNAMID and Joint Chief Mediator Martin Uhomoibhi met with the two parties and made some proposals.

(ST)

January 6, 2017 (JUBA) - South Sudan President Salva Kiir expressed readiness and optimism of forging new working relations with the new Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, saying his administration appreciate and wants to enhance better working relations with the new leadership

“Sometimes situation creates misunderstanding, it creates confusion but with leadership, these challenges can be turned into opportunity to address the issues of concern. I extend you, your Excellency, on behalf of the people of South Sudan and the government the support your office would require so that we all work together in championing universal principles and ideals enshrined in the UN charter”, president Kiir said in a congratulatory message address to the new Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who assumed office this week.

Kiir said he would like the United Nations and other western countries to look at South Sudan as a member state with equal rights, sovereignty and leadership ready to work with the global community.

He said sanctions and arms embargo would not solve the problem but rather support for peaceful dialogue and nonpartisan engagement of the international community would address the conflict.

“We say sanctions and arms embargo would not contribute to addressing the issues of war, instead they will exacerbate and undermine the process”, he added in a 1st January 2017 message seen by Sudan Tribune on Friday.

The message is his first official reaction to a draft resolution by the United States, backed by Britain and France, seeking to impose arms embargo after it warned of a risk of impending mass atrocities and genocide.

The measure, however, fell short of the nine votes needed for adoption in the 15-member council.

Russia, China, Japan, Malaysia, Venezuela and three African council members — Angola, Egypt and Senegal, abstained from the voted after they all expressed serious reservations.

Activists and human right groups viewed the rejection of the arms embargo a setback for the United States, which helped South Sudan to gain independence in 2011 but has been unable to steer the country away from a war that erupted two years later.

If the proposal was approved it would have seen rebel leader Riek Machar, Chief of General Staff of the government forces and a key ally of President Kiir, Paul Malong and Information Minister Michael Makuei, put on a sanctions blacklist and subjected to an assets freeze and a global travel ban.

Japan, which has some 350 troops serving in the UN mission in South Sudan, has argued that the measures, if adopted, would antagonize President Kiir's government and put peacekeepers' lives at risk.

Opponents of the sanctions point to Kiir's call earlier this month for a national dialogue process to restore peace, saying that initiative must be given a chance.

However, the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was backing the U.S. push for sanctions on South Sudan, saying an embargo would reduce the capacity of all sides to wage war.

"If we fail to act, South Sudan will be on a trajectory towards mass atrocities," Ban told the Council. The proposal provides for a one-year ban on the “supply, sale or transfer” of “arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment” as well as spares parts.

The world's youngest nation, South Sudan descended into war in December 2013, leaving tens of thousands dead and more than 3.1 million people displaced.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power argued at the time of failing to secure the support of other members that all sides were mobilizing for more fighting and that action was needed to prevent a bloodbath.

"The situation is not getting better, but worse, and we are sitting on our hands," Power told the council on Monday. "Large-scale attacks could start at any moment."

Russian Deputy Ambassador Petr Iliichev expressed different view of the warning and cast doubt over warnings of a risk of genocide, arguing that criminal groups and "undisciplined" troops were responsible for mass violence, and not the government's policy.

There is growing alarm over the humanitarian crisis in the country as the conflict enters its fourth year.

More than 6 million people — half of South Sudan's population — are in need of urgent aid and humanitarian organizations expect this number to rise by 20 to 30 percent next year.

Some 1.3 million South Sudanese have fled across borders as refugees, including 383,000 who have fled to Uganda since July, according to UN figures.

(ST)

By Trayo A. Ali

On January first 2017 Sudan celebrated Sixty One anniversary of its Independence Day. Unfortunately, neither the political environment is pretty cozy nor the public mood is festive to stomach the occasion. It is rather all out grief, state of mourning, and sorrow. The news is polluted and the air is contaminated with blood. The smell is all gun-powder than an odour. Orphan children, street boys and school dropped youngsters out number their age group who have access to milk, bread, butter and class room. The horizon is getting ever darker and hopes getting dashed. It's a suffocating air. The Six Decades of the independence are lost case and the ordinary Sudanese manages to erase the bad memories while the government insist to force and fool by way of a fake celebration. The government should stop selling the wind to boats.

Hailing the conquered is never the answer
The state of Sudan is a failure case and the Six Decades of the claimed Independence are a lost ones. What is there then to celebrate for it at all?.
The independence is meaningless and celebration is worthless unless it's totally associated with the welfare of the people. Progress, prosperity, voluntary unity, peace, security, stability, equality and education for all.
The independence anniversary is usually considered as a time to exercise sober reflection, soul searching and self reexamination for stock taking.
The true independence is measured up by indicators that answer questions such as:
How much prosperity and welfare of the citizen is achieved? How equal are the concerned citizens? How dignified are they before their state? How much security they enjoy? How much its leaders (men or women) are of integrity who cheer accountability? How affordable the necessary services to the disposal of the citizen (education, health, food, clean water, shelter, electricity and roads)? How clean the environment?
This is how the relevancy of any independence is measured. Ask the Koreans, the Ghanaians, the Tanzanians, the Senegalese and the rest of the Sexagenarian nations. All are age group of the Sudan.
The Britons have every right to question the ability and stamina of Sudanese leaders for self management.

The missing link is visionary leadership
"He who has nothing can offer nothing". How can any independence be credible and meaningful if it only generates death, misery, abject poverty, hunger, wars, diseases, ignorance, corruption, thievery, greed, nepotism, racism, hatred, genocide, indiscipline, abuse of power, brutality, displacement, refuge, insensitivity, frustration, extremism, intolerance, exclusion, marginalization, dishonesty, divisions, mediocrity, dependency ?. It only takes a crook regime like the Islamist NCP government to insist on presenting false facts to fool its citizens. You can fool some peole some time or all people for some time but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
So what the celebration for?. Aren't we exercising a kind of self deception in hailing the conquered instead of hailing the conqueror hero? Aren't we only adding insult to injury?. Stupid level of ostracization and a state of living in denial

Challenges and fundamentals. None is fixed
How can the independence be relevant and worth celebrating if it was not able to identify the challenges and failed to fix the fundamentals ? .

Searching for identity: Zebra, Donkey or Zonkey ?
No nation can conduct its affair in this manner. Any meaningful progress and development can only take place in the context of redefined identity acceptable to all. What does it mean when a president of nation confess and publicly declares that his country has failed to redefine its identity after six decades of its independence? Does this situation deserve to be celebrated?
Strange for a sexagenarian nation searching for identity ? Unable to identify itself whether Is it Zebra, donkey or Zonkey ? Are we celebrating Zebra, or donkey or Zonkey for a Zonkey is a hybrid. The celebrators should tell us.

Indeed Fire gives birth to ashes
Sudan (once a cradle of African civilization) is in state of evaporation. It is reduced into smoke. Professor Leopold Senghor of Senegal statement clicks our memory. He once noted that "Sudan made the worst choice. Instead of becoming the best of Africans it chose to be the worst of Arabs". Indeed history does not have a mercy upon a fool who mess and tamper with it. The circumstances will dictate upon a kind of revenge you deserve. It is humiliating.

Aluta must continua till the beautiful ones are born.
Sudanese must continue to fight for conditions that deserve a meaningful and useful celebration. They should first liberate themselves from the yoke of dictatorship. Dignity must reign, prosperity must prevail. Peace and security of the citizen must be the order of the day. That was when it give birth to the beautiful ones. They are not yet born. Only then they can have enjoyable, credible and sustainable independence that is truly independent. Only then Sudan deserve national celebration.

African Peace Information Service (APIN). He can be reached at saharaclub2015@gmail.com

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