Panel Discussions - Monday, April 26, 2010
Sudan/South Sudan: “Every Reason to Move On With a Good Process”
At an IPI event on “Postelection Sudan and the Way Forward,” Erik Solheim, Norway’s Minister of the Environment and International Development, said the stakeholders in the Sudan peace process “have every reason to move on with a good process” and “have shown ability—Bashir, Salva Kiir, and all the others—at the end of the day to find a makeable solution.”
“And we should do whatever we can, the UN and others, to assist them in that endeavor,” he added.
His references were to Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the newly reelected President of Sudan, and Salva Kiir, also reelected as the head of Southern Sudan, which is preparing to vote in January on whether to split off from the North and become its own country.
Mr. Solheim asserted that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which laid the groundwork for the January referendum, is a “redeeming factor” in the process, and that “we should stick to the timeline of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and we should not deviate from that.”
“That would be the most essential guarantee against a lot of problems,” he said.
Adonia Ayebare, Director of IPI’s Africa Program, joined Mr. Solheim in the April 26th panel discussion and said one issue with the agreement is that “we all tend to focus on the juicy issues around the CPA, which is election and referendum,” and that a main issue of the CPA has been forgotten—democratic transformation in Sudan.
“At a crucial time in history with the Sudan, when we are all concentrating on elections and the referendum… the issue of democratic transformation has not been, to me, adequately addressed by the UN, by the international community in general,” said Mr. Ayebare, who is the former Deputy Permanent Representative of Uganda to the UN.
“I think there is a danger that if we don't address them, we will hurry into having a referendum… and then we are back to square one,” he added.
Both Mr. Solheim and Mr. Ayebare agreed that the Sudanese must be the main players in determining the way forward. Said Mr. Ayebare, “I agree with the Minister that at the end of the day, it is the Sudanese stakeholders—not only the National Congress, but the SPLM, but also other stakeholders. It's their country. And I think we should make sure that their views are reflected in whatever policy sort of instruments we craft for Sudan.”
The event was moderated by Dr. Edward C. Luck, IPI Senior Vice President for Research and Programs.
Read Transcript
The Global Observatory
Interview with John Prendergast, Co-Founder, Enough Project
Mr. Prendergast discusses the international justice system and the new ground forged by Invisible Children's Kony2012 campaign.
Key Global Events to Watch in May
A list of key upcoming meetings and events with implications for global affairs.
The Global Observatory is a new website by IPI, providing timely analysis on peace and security issues, interviews with leading policymakers, interactive maps, and more.
Recent Events
May 10, 2012
Arbour: What the Rule of Law Means
“In my understanding of the rule of law, fundamentally, what the rule of law means is that it embraces the principle of equality before the law,” Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group (ICG), told an IPI audience on May 10, 2012. Ms. Arbour outlined that this means that no one is above the law and everyone has both equal protection and equal benefit of the law. 
May 03, 2012
Shachtman: Cyber Threats Akin to South Bronx, Not Pearl Harbor
“There’s not a danger of a cyber Pearl Harbor… it’s more like the South Bronx circa 1999, where there’s a danger that it becomes such a tough neighborhood that no one wants to set up shop there and people move out,” Noah Shachtman, editor of the Danger Room blog at Wired magazine and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, told an IPI audience at a panel on cyber security on May 3, 2011.
April 27, 2012
Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems
An April 27th roundtable discussion at IPI titled “Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems” examined the progress, prospects and challenges of regional and international early warning and response mechanisms to monitor, anticipate, and mitigate potential conflict situations in Africa.