Sudan, 2004

It gives me

pleasure to extend my delegationís sincere

41

congratulations to Mr. Jean Ping on his deserved

election to the presidency of the fifty-ninth session of

the General Assembly. Given the issues that we must

consider during this session, and in view of the

important tasks we must face in the coming year, we

particularly welcome the Presidentís experience and

skills, which are familiar to us in the African arena.

We would also like to extend our thanks and

appreciation to Mr. Julian R. Hunte, the outgoing

President, for the great efforts he made in conducting

the work of the Assembly, as well as to the Secretary-

General for leading the work of the Organization.

Last year from this rostrum I stated that

negotiations between the Government and the Sudan

Peopleís Liberation Movement/Army, under the

auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on

Development (IGAD) and Kenyaís chairmanship, and

with the support of the IGAD partners, had made great

progress and peace had become imminent. I am glad to

say that the last round of negotiations resulted in the

signing, in the first week of June 2004, of six protocols

dealing with security arrangements, cessation of

hostilities, distribution of wealth, power-sharing and

the conflict in the Nubian mountains region, the Blue

Nile and Abiai. We decided to hold the last round of

negotiations on 7 October 2004 to complete the details

of a comprehensive peace, which will, it is hoped, be

signed at the end of this year.

We stand on the threshold of peace. The new

challenge before us now is to overcome the differences

of the past, start reconstruction and rehabilitation,

concentrate on development and strengthen the pillars

of peace and national unity on the basis of

compatriotism and equality of rights and duties. For

that reason, my Government declares its firm intention

of conducting a national dialogue with all political

forces, inside and outside the Sudan, in order to make

peace a national objective that can be achieved through

a national charter.

It also gives me pleasure to say that in addition to

the talks in Naivasha and Abuja my Government

started a third forum in Cairo, under the auspices of the

Egyptian Government, to engage in dialogue with

factions of the national opposition, headquartered in

Asmara.

Because war has devastated all sectors of the

country, reconstruction efforts are especially difficult.

We would like to express our appreciation to the

international community for the humanitarian assistance

they provided during the war. We now appeal to the

international community to help in the reconstruction

process: to ameliorate the living conditions in the areas

devastated by war all over the Sudan; to aid in the

resettlement of internally displaced persons and

refugees; and to participate in development projects in

order to achieve peace and stability.

We were at the threshold of peace in the south

when another war broke out in Darfur as the result of a

rebel movement begun by some tribes and supported

by foreign forces. The rebel movementís terrorist

action was not directed against the Government only,

but against those tribes that refused to join them. That,

in turn, pushed those tribes to train and arm militias to

defend themselves against the rebels. The rebel

movement targeted the security apparatus, sowing

death and destruction, which led to the release of criminal

Janjaweed groups from prisons. The aggression continued

against civilians and Government institutions.

The root causes of Darfur go back to conflicts

among the tribal communities in the region. Previously,

those conflicts were settled according to traditional

customs and norms. But the growth in population and

the number of livestock, coupled with a decrease in the

water supply owing to desertification, led to tense

struggles between grazing land tribes and farmers.

There were other causes for regional conflict: an influx

of arms and the interference of neighbouring countries

that tried to exploit the tense situation, encouraging

rebellions against the Government by training and

arming certain groups.

The present conflict in Darfur started in March

2003, when rebels started inciting dissension and strife,

attacking highways, plundering livestock and taking

international relief workers as hostages. The

Government tried to convince them to abandon military

action, but they insisted on occupying cities and

villages and terrorizing tribes, forcing them into armed

service. Everyone had to carry weapons for self-

defence. Then, the Government intervened to try to

halt the hostilities, impose law and order and prevent

civil war.

This conflict, which was imposed on the

Government, has created extremely complicated and

dire humanitarian conditions. The Government took the

necessary measures. It sent food relief to Darfur. Next,

it eliminated all the administrative, legal and technical

42

arrangements that impeded relief work, it allowed

relief organizations to enter Darfur unimpeded, and it

curtailed certain regulations, such as visa requirements,

in order to provide protection to camps of displaced

persons. The Government deployed police and

reopened legal offices destroyed by the rebels. The

process of bringing all of those accused of violating

human rights to justice began. Furthermore, the

Government cooperated with the international

community by signing a joint communique with the

Secretary-General that includes a number of measures

to deal with the situation in Darfur and, together with

Jan Pronk, Special Representative of the Secretary-

General for the Sudan, I headed a Joint Implementation

Mechanism mission to the area.

Furthermore, out of its belief in a peaceful

settlement as a strategic choice, the Government

entered into negotiations with the rebels under the

auspices of the President of Chad, which culminated in

the Abashi agreement in 2003, but that agreement was

later violated by the rebels. However, this did not

weaken the Governmentís resolve to continue its

efforts, until we attained the ceasefire agreement in

NíDjamena. In order to cooperate with the African

Union, we sent a high-level delegation to the first

round of negotiations at Addis Ababa; our delegation

was given full authority to reach a peaceful settlement

with the rebels. But the rebels boycotted the talks.

The Government redoubled its efforts at all

levels - political, security and humanitarian - out of

its responsibility for the people, and it cooperated fully

with the United Nations so as to implement the

agreement that had been reached with the Secretary-

General. Then, on 30 July 2004, the Security Council

adopted resolution 1556 (2004), which gave the

Government only one month to deal with the problem

and threatened the imposition of sanctions. It is

regrettable that this resolution sent an erroneous

message, thus encouraging the rebels to give up

negotiations with good intention. They insisted on

conditions that were impossible to implement. And this

led to the collapse of negotiations in Addis Ababa, in

spite of the African Unionís great efforts.

Notwithstanding the faults and impracticality of

this Security Council resolution, my Government,

abiding by its international legitimacy and

responsibility for its people, will continue to do its

utmost to find the shortest way for the return of peace,

stability and security to Darfur. My Government signed

a working plan for Darfur with the United Nations; this

plan included detailed arrangements for humanitarian

aid, security and protection of displaced persons and

their voluntary return. We assigned extra police forces,

numbering 10,000. We also signed an agreement with

the International Organization for Migration on the

return of refugees.

Within the framework of a political settlement,

and despite the intransigence and lack of seriousness of

the rebels, my Government accepted the invitation

extended by President Obasanjo of Nigeria, the current

Chairman of the African Union. We then sent another

high-ranking delegation to Abuja on 23 August out of

our belief in the political settlement as a strategic

option. As it happened in the Addis Ababa

negotiations, the Security Council adopted its

resolution 1564 (2004) last Saturday, 18 September,

which gave more incentive to the rebels and sent them

an erroneous message to continue their intransigence.

This led to the failure of the negotiations.

Security Council resolution 1564 (2004) did not

consider my Governmentís efforts to contain the

humanitarian crisis in Darfur, which led to dÈtente in

the situation. It did not pay attention to my

Governmentís warning about the negative impact of

any measures that would hamper the efforts made by

the African Union for the peaceful settlement of the

question of Darfur.

We call upon the international community to

provide assistance to the needy population in Darfur.

At the same time, we ask for support and promotion of

the African Union's efforts and that the situation on the

ground not be further complicated or the Unionís

efforts undermined.

Believing in our own principles, our sense of

responsibility and the attention my Government

attaches to human rights questions, we have cooperated

with international and voluntary organizations for the

development and enhancement of human rights in my

country. We have ratified this year the African

Children's Initiative and, over the past months, we

have received some independent experts and special

rapporteurs sent by the Office of the United Nations

High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). In

cooperation with OHCHR, we have deployed a team of

human rights observers in Darfur. Sudan's doors will

be open for all those who want to know the truth. We

have nothing to hide. Our efforts were not limited to

43

cooperating with the international community. We have

taken some measures at the local level, and we have

established a national independent committee to

investigate allegations of human rights violations in

Darfur. Also, there are other committees to investigate

the other claims of rape in the Darfur region besides

our efforts to provide protection, peace and security to

our citizens.

Since the beginning of the crisis, my Government

has not hesitated to recognize that there has been a

humanitarian problem in Darfur and a security problem

that ought to be dealt with through a comprehensive

political solution, despite the fact that the rebel

movement led to this problem by starting violence and

fighting. Then we resorted to the international

community in general and the African Union and the

League of Arab States in particular.

We hope that the international community,

especially the Security Council, will cooperate with us

to find a solution instead of issuing threats and

condemnations. The last Security Council resolution is

a living example of such threats.

We welcome the international communityís

investigation of the Darfur violations. As I said, we

have nothing to hide. What we all want from the

Secretary-General, who is responsible for the

establishment of this committee, and from the Security

Council is confirmation of the credibility of the

international organization so that this international

committee would be neutral and professional. We do

not want a committee like that headed by Richard

Butler, who prepared his report at another location

where it was signed and submitted to the Security

Council indicating that it represented the position of

the Organization.

We hope that the voices of those who took certain

positions regarding Darfur will be silent until the

international committeeís report is issued. We face a

very delicate situation and developments in the world

today, and we need to face such challenges by

garnering the political will to enhance the role of the

United Nations and its agencies in order to carry out

their functions within the framework of a real

democracy that would express the interests and hopes

of all peoples and confront the challenges of the

twenty-first century.

We must accelerate our current efforts that have

been going on for a decade now for Security Council

reform and to develop its methods of work. The body

that is responsible for international peace and security

is composed of permanent members, whose monopoly

of the veto reflects a great imbalance over the simplest

criteria of justice. Among the five permanent

Members, there are three from one geographical group;

two of them are from Western Europe. There is no

representation whatsoever for entire continents, such as

Africa or Latin America, and vast regions of Asia.

Therefore, any discussion about submitting another

candidate from Western Europe before taking these

continents into consideration would be a consecration

of this imbalanced equation and of the Westís

hegemony over the affairs of this Organization.

Terrorism and extremism are among the

challenges facing the world today. We declare our total

rejection and condemnation of this destructive

phenomenon; but at the same time there is an

unacceptable misunderstanding and confusion between

terrorism and the struggles of people to achieve their

independence and to rid themselves of foreign

occupation. This misunderstanding culminates in the

extreme when terrorism is linked to followers of a

certain religion or culture. Terrorism has no religion or

homeland. We stand with the international community

and cooperate with it in its fight to eliminate terrorism,

and we call for an international agreement on a

definition of terrorism and to find the best means to

face this plague through collective efforts.

The gap between the rich and poor countries is

widening within a system of globalization that further

enriches the wealthy and impoverishes the poor. It has

become an obstacle for the international community

and the aspirations to a free and dignified life of

billions of people in developing countries. The

imbalance in todayís world economy and free trade is

obvious. It will have an adverse effect not only on the

developing countries but will lead also to total

catastrophe in the whole world. We need to have

political resolve, as stated by world leaders in the

Millennium Declaration four years ago, and later at

Monterrey and Johannesburg.

Developing and least developed countries are still

suffering from hunger and poverty.

Let us renew hope for the hundreds of millions of

poor and hungry people by translating that political

will into concrete action in order to provide them with

education and drinking water and to eliminate hunger,

44

destitution and disease by focusing on the goals and

programmes that we have repeatedly agreed on. In this

connection, we would like to pay tribute to the

international initiative on the new Action Against

Hunger and Poverty.

Israelís oppressive policies against unarmed

Palestinian people, the imposition of closures on

occupied Palestinian land, the extrajudicial crimes

committed there, the demolition of houses, the

starvation and intimidation, the increased settlement

activities and the besieging of the Palestinian President

all require that the international community bring

pressure to bear on Israel to stop those acts. The Sudan

welcomes the advisory opinion of the International

Court of Justice on the illegality of the separation wall

and on compensation for all losses caused by it. We

welcome resolution ES-10/15, adopted by the General

Assembly at its tenth emergency session, on 20 July

2004, demanding that Israel abide by that opinion. An

international, comprehensive and just peace in the

Middle East will be reached only when Israel

withdraws from all occupied Arab lands, including the

Syrian Golan Heights and the Lebanese Shaliía farms.

There will be no peace or stability until the Palestinian

people recover their legitimate rights, including their

right to establish an independent Palestinian State with

Jerusalem as its capital and the right of refugees to

return to their lands.

The difficult situation facing the Iraqi people

makes it necessary to assist them to overcome their

problems. Here we reaffirm the unity and independence

of the Iraqi people and their right to self-determination.

We hope that the restoration of those rights will lead to

security and stability and to a return to normality in

Iraq and that it will enable the Iraqi people to exercise

their right to choose their own political leadership

through free and fair elections. We call upon the

international community to support the Iraqi

provisional Government, to help in the reconstruction

of Iraq and to support any initiative that would enable

the Iraqis to live in dignity in their own country.

Our efforts complement those efforts of the

African Union to achieve stability and development in

our continent, a continent so rich natural and human

resources and capabilities. We have resolved to settle

our conflicts and crises, which squander such resources

and capabilities, and to work instead to promote

economic and social development through the New

Partnership for Africaís Development (NEPAD).

In conclusion, we reaffirm our determination to

achieve a comprehensive and just peace that would

lead to stability and well-being for the people of the

Sudan and would bolster African Union efforts towards

economic and social integrity. We look forward to the

United Nations playing its role in establishing justice

in international relations based on understanding,

cooperation and mutual interests and avoiding

confrontation and sanctions, which have proven to be

harmful to people.