Sudan, 2008

It is indeed

my pleasure, on behalf of the leadership, people and

Government of the Sudan, to greet the General

Assembly as it meets in its sixty-third session. We wish

its deliberations every success and hope to witness

tangible progress on all the issues and challenges that

must be given priority by this Organization. We refer,

of course, to the maintenance of international peace

and security; realizing the Millennium Development

Goals (MDGs); containing the food crisis, poverty,

hunger, climate change and water shortages; and

reactivating the role of the United Nations in a

changing world.

We are indeed delighted to see Mr. Miguel

d’Escoto Brockmann chairing this session. We are

confident that, with his wisdom, experience and

perspicacity, we may indeed be hopeful and optimistic

that the international community will realize its

ambitions for global development, reconstruction and

prosperity.

I also wish to strongly commend and thank

Ambassador Srgjan Kerim for the competence with

which he conducted the work of the sixty-second

session. We also thank the Secretary-General and his

staff for the efforts that they continue to deploy in the

service of the mandate of this Organization.

This session of the General Assembly falls amid

some very important and particular developments in

the international and regional spheres. Millions are

looking forward to a world of peace, stability and

prosperity that respects the common values and

principles enshrined in the Charter of the United

Nations, notably respect for the sovereignty of States,

their choices, the peaceful settlement of disputes and

joint cooperation in all fields.

Although we continue to hope for and work

towards a capable and efficient United Nations and a

complete framework for multilateral cooperation that

takes into consideration the wealth and diversity of the

international community, we in the developing

08-51851 20

countries, especially in the African continent, remain

profoundly convinced of the need to maintain those

objectives and principles. We recall that our African

continent has had a long and difficult journey as a

result of its backwardness since it broke the yoke of

colonialism and fought its post-independence wars,

during which the objectives and aspirations of Africans

to lead a dignified life were forever thwarted by the

so-called lost decades of development and the

unfavourable economic and trade atmosphere. The

political and security situation of the African continent

has made it vulnerable to foreign interventions and

conspiracies that have undermined its stability and

rendered peace a more distant prospect.

In addition to discussing the various and well-

known threats and dangers facing the African continent

and all developing nations, I should like to draw

attention to and warn about the danger of the abuse of

what is called “universal jurisdiction”. That concept

that was condemned in July 2008 at the Sharm

el-Sheikh summit, which called on the Security

Council and the General Assembly to seriously

examine the issue and to cancel it. The politicization

and abuse of the aforementioned principle clearly

shows that disregard for and non-compliance with

political and professional norms that are guided by the

principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of

international law, together with the application of

double standards, pose grave dangers for the region

and beyond, threatening the stability and prestige of

the institutions of the international order.

Achieving peace and stability in the Sudan has

been a firm priority objective of our Government,

which has demonstrated its commitment to the option

of peace, as reflected in the historic milestone achieved

when we signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement

on 9 January 2005 in Nairobi. The Agreement, which

ended the longest-running conflict on the African

continent since the colonial era, was reinforced by the

Darfur Peace Agreement, signed at Abuja, and the

Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement, signed at Asmara,

Eritrea.

Our efforts to achieve peace have proceeded from

our conviction that peace will create a favourable

environment for the development of the Sudan’s vast

agricultural resources and wealth, which in turn will

ensure the sustainability of peace. Furthermore, peace

in the Sudan is a strategic goal aimed at reinforcing

stability in neighbouring countries, the region and the

continent. Thus, we appeal to all members of the

international community, through the Assembly, to

support the efforts to achieve peace and stability in the

Sudan. By so doing, they will promote, enhance and

guarantee peace and stability in the region and on the

African continent. We must avoid doing anything that

could negatively affect or jeopardize those efforts.

While our country is firmly committed to

implementing the provisions of the Comprehensive

Peace Agreement, in particular by holding general

elections during the first half of next year and by

completing our national programmes for disarmament,

demobilization and reintegration and de-mining, we

hope that the international community will honour its

financial commitments, including those pledges

announced in Oslo in 2005 and in Norway in May

2008.

Here, in view of the difficulties and obstacles that

we have encountered in implementing the Agreement, I

should like to recall a principle of Western thought

regarding the difference between words and deeds. We

in the Sudan believe that our desire for the cancellation

of our foreign debt is in accordance with the spirit and

requirements of peace agreements, since that debt is

hampering our reconstruction efforts. We also call for

the lifting of the unilateral sanctions imposed against

our country, which defeat the true purpose of a

comprehensive peace. In that way, the citizens of the

Sudan could benefit from the dividends of peace.

The problem of Darfur has been the chief concern

of the people and the Government of the Sudan. No

one is more eager than our people to achieve peace and

stability in Darfur, which, after all, is their problem and

their responsibility. From this rostrum, we reaffirm our

full commitment to achieving a peaceful political

settlement of the crisis in Darfur, one that will enhance

the ongoing peace process through positive actions.

These include the implementation of the People of the

Sudan initiative, aimed at developing a national

consensus as to the best way to resolve the issue, as

stated by the President of the Republic during his

recent important visit to Darfur; the appointment of

Mr. Jebreel Basoli, Joint Chief Negotiator, whom we

fully support; the establishment of an Arab-African

committee, co-chaired by the Prime Minister of Qatar,

the Chairperson of the Commission of the African

Union and the Secretary-General of the League of Arab

States, to mediate peace negotiations between the

Government of the Sudan and the armed movements in

21 08-51851

Darfur, in close cooperation and coordination with the

representatives of the African Union and the United

Nations; and the implementation of the initiative that

was supported and welcomed by the African Union, the

League of Arab States and the Secretary-General of the

United Nations. The Sudanese Government of National

Unity sincerely hopes that those efforts will promptly

lead to comprehensive peace and stability in Darfur.

We had hoped that the signing of the Darfur

Peace Agreement on 5 May 2006 as a result of the

generous mediation of the African Union would

encourage the movements that had not signed the

Comprehensive Peace Agreement to do so. In

particular, in order to ensure full implementation of the

Agreement, power-sharing and the establishment of the

Transitional Darfur Regional Authority, male and

female citizens of Darfur have been appointed to

executive and legislative positions and various

arrangements have been put in place to ensure wealth-

and power-sharing and security.

However, as members are all aware, the

movements that oppose peace have continued to

boycott all the negotiations, undermining the efforts of

Mr. Jan Eliasson and Mr. Salim Ahmed Salim. The

movements have continued to reject the peace option

and to choose the military option, not to serve the

interests of the people of Darfur but to pursue a policy

aimed at regime change in the Sudan, as demonstrated

in the military aggression carried out on 10 May 2008

against the Sudanese capital itself. Those movements

would not have been able to do what they did had they

not been receiving mixed or wrong messages from

some circles, since they saw that the non-signatories

were not being pressured to join the organ of peace,

while those who signed the treaty were. That increased

the intransigence of the non-signatories, threatening

the chances for peace and the humanitarian conditions.

With regard to peacekeeping — and in

accordance with the principles of positive cooperation

with the United Nations and the African Union under

the agreement reached at the high-level understandings

in Addis Ababa on 16 November 2006, which led to the

adoption of Security Council resolution 1769 (2007)

establishing the mandate of the joint African Union-

United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur

(UNAMID) — the Government of the Sudan has

fulfilled its commitments with regard to its role in the

peace process in Darfur and indeed has fulfilled many

other steps. The status of forces agreement has been

concluded. The mandate was transferred from the

African Union Mission in the Sudan to UNAMID on

31 December of last year. The headquarters have been

built and operational capacities have been established

in the three states of Darfur. Periodic coordination

meetings between the Government of the Sudan and

the command of the joint operation have been

deliberating on all the problems and resolving them.

On the humanitarian level, the Government of the

Sudan remains committed to executing the

humanitarian communiqué concluded with the United

Nations on 28 March 2007, which is being

implemented in an exemplary manner as a result of the

matchless follow-up mechanism to track the

implementation of the humanitarian communiqué and

the special efforts of the Government to open

humanitarian corridors in Darfur and to facilitate the

delivery of humanitarian aid. Once again we renew our

commitment to that effort.

At a time when the Government of National

Unity has taken giant strides to implement the peace

agreement, with the full support of the President of the

Republic, the electoral law has been passed and

approved by parliament to usher the Sudan to yet

another phase of democratic transformation and

peaceful transfer of power through general elections to

be held in 2009.

The country is fully mobilized and engaged in

turning over the page of violence and war in Darfur,

and amid those developments came the request of the

Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to

the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue an arrest warrant. An

arrest warrant against whom? Against a man who

ended the longest war in Africa, a man who brought

peace to eastern Sudan and laid the foundations for

peace in Darfur. That request targeted the leadership of

the State, the symbol of its sovereignty and dignity, in

a failed attempt at political and moral assassination, as

well as causing delay or erosion of the peace process

for ulterior motives unrelated to justice or to the

realization of peace and stability in Darfur, and in a

State that is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

Moreover, the actions of the Prosecutor disregard

the road map agreed upon by the Sudan, the United

Nations and the African Union on the basis of the

Addis Ababa understanding in November 2006 and the

international conference on Darfur held alongside the

last session of the General Assembly. The road map

08-51851 22

was further reiterated and endorsed by the Security

Council in its resolution 1769 (2007). The road map

was based on four tracks: rehabilitation and

development, the peace process as a priority, the

peacekeeping operation and the humanitarian track.

Thus the Prosecutor is turning upside down the issue of

accountability, which the Government of the Sudan

supports and which is already being handled by a

competent and effective Sudanese judiciary, and giving

it a completely different character by introducing it

into the International Criminal Court and destabilizing

justice and peace in the Sudan and the region. It is an

open invitation to the rebel movements that oppose

peace to stay away from the peace option. The actions

of the Prosecutor seek to influence negatively the

elections to be held in 2009, through which the

Government will enter into a new phase of peace and

democratic transformation.

From this rostrum, in the name of the

Government and the people of the Sudan, who were

unanimous in rejecting that step, I thank and commend

all the active forces of more than two thirds of the

international community, which through their regional,

geographic and political institutions and organizations

have condemned the measures taken by the ICC

Prosecutor and called on the Security Council to rectify

the situation arising from that action. Here I

specifically mean the member States of the African

Union, the League of Arab States, the Non-Aligned

Movement, the Organization of the Islamic

Conference, the member States of the African,

Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and other

countries that have expressed their disapproval and

their complete rejection of that step taken by the ICC

Prosecutor.

I would like to assure the Assembly that the

Government of the Sudan is making progress in its

resolute and principled goal of achieving lasting peace

and removing the bitterness of war and its legacy in

accordance with the values and principles of the people

of the Sudan and their mores, customs and traditions,

which are based on peaceful coexistence, reconciliation

and tolerance. The establishment of peace in Darfur

and in the Sudan and the steps taken by the Prosecutor

of the International Criminal Court are two parallel

lines that can never meet, hence such situations must

be rectified as soon as possible and there must be a

return to the commitment to the political process.

Since the issue of more democratic international

relations was one of the subjects proposed for the

general debate of this session, our country, like all

other African countries, has been following the efforts

to reform this Organization — especially the Security

Council, which is charged with the maintenance of

international peace and security and which has

remained as it is since its inception while the entire

international arena has been changing. That made

reforming that Council an urgent priority, so that it can

be more responsive to the aspirations of the developing

nations.

I am referring specifically to Africa, which has no

permanent representation in the Security Council,

whose agenda is beset with African issues. Here I

would like to reiterate that the Sudan is in accord with

the African position included in the Ezulwini document

on the issue of reforming the modus operandi and rules

of procedure of the United Nations so that it can be

more democratic, transparent, express equitable

geographic representation of the world’s continents and

reflect the developments that the world has seen since

1945.

Economic and trade developments compete with

each other. The failure of economic structures in many

developing and least developed countries constitutes a

problem that raises obstacles for the movement to

realize the MDGs as soon as possible. The current

structure of the international economy, with its

restrictive, unfair trade practices and restrictions on the

exports of developing nations, is a negative impact of

globalization, in addition to the heavy external debt

burden that paralyzes the region’s national economic

development. Those obstacles are very serious and

retard development, especially in the African continent.

The United Nations Millennium Summit

emphasized the special position of Africa as a priority

with regard to international assistance and channels of

cooperation and support through relevant initiatives

like the New Partnership for Africa’s Development

(NEPAD) and other regional, subregional and national

initiatives.

Here, let me mention that the Sudan has

implemented several quick-income projects and several

short-term projects to benefit vulnerable groups.

Regarding the attainment of MDGs — especially the

alleviation of poverty, the development and support of

education, health and the fight against diseases like

23 08-51851

malaria — the State is still directing its efforts to attain

those objectives and to realize sustainable

development. We must take into consideration the

potential of the country and its vast resources, which,

according to reports of relevant international

organizations, make it capable of helping to solve the

global food crisis by providing food for millions

around the world.

National efforts in the Sudan can currently be

seen in the context of efforts to develop and revitalize

the agricultural sector and to realize a comprehensive

green revolution. Here I must emphasize the serious

negative impact of phenomena like climate change and

environmental deterioration, which have constituted

reasons for war and conflict in Africa. The conflict in

Darfur is one practical example of the impact of those

phenomena and how they directly affect the daily lives

and needs of individuals.

The Sudan, as a party to the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

since 1999, emphasizes the need to put more effort and

coordination into intensifying multilateral action to

face those phenomena and to achieve a more efficient

system for the post-2012 era. Developing nations must

also participate in dealing with the causes and effects

of climate change.

The Sudan is of the view that developed nations

should fulfil their commitments to capacity-building

and should provide the financial and technical

resources to support developing nations in facing those

problems.

The Sudan emphasizes the fact that the

maintenance of international peace and security

requires, first and foremost, an urgent solution to the

problem in Palestine and that the situation be dealt

with in a decisive and serious manner, especially in

view of the tragic situation that the Palestinian people

in the occupied territories are facing. The international

community is called upon today more than any other

time to put pressure on the occupying authorities to

abide by resolutions of international legitimacy so that

the Palestinian people may realize their full right to

self-determination and the establishment of an

independent State with Jerusalem as its capital.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that for

the United Nations to continue playing its important

role imposes on us a collective responsibility to find

the solid will and determination to make the

Organization a truly collective framework for

multilateral, international efforts to deal effectively and

justly with international issues and problems. The

United Nations must establish clear and transparent

partnerships according to the Charter with regional

organizations in order to realize regional and

international peace and security. The Sudan, as a

committed and active member of this Organization,

will remain faithful to the objectives that constitute our

collective effort.