Below is a near verbatim transcript of the first press briefing of the CJMC featuring United Nations Force Commander Lt. Gen. Jasbir Singh Lidder, SAF Representative Brg. Gen. Hussein Ali Kambal and SPLA Representative Brg. Gen. Marc Paul held on the 26th March 2006 at United Nations Mission in Sudan Headquarters, Ramsis.
Spokesperson Elkoussy: Thank
you for coming to our press briefing today.
I am honored to present our Force Commander Lieutenant-General Jasbir Lidder and our guest speakers Brigadier-General Hussein Ali Kambal of the Sudanese Armed Forces and Brigadier-General Marc Paul of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army.
We will start first with a presentation by our Force Commander and then we open the floor to questions from the press.
Again, we welcome our distinguished guests here and I turn the floor now to our Force Commander.
Force Commander Lidder: Thank you very much.
It is an honor for us to be here along with the two senior members of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) to whom you have just been introduced.
As you know, the CJMC is the body which monitors the implementation of the CPA and it meets every fortnight on the 2nd or the 4th Tuesday of the month and it has been meting regularly - this is one structure which has been meeting regularly - has met 25 times so far including an emergency meeting which we had.
I would just take two or three minutes to give you certain highlights on the progress of the implementation of the CPA and request thereafter the senior members of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) to say a few words in their opening remarks and then take on any questions that you may have.
Incidentally, I must tell you that this is the first joint press conference that we have held of the CJMC and it was basically at the request of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) because they felt that the whole body must seek an advance forum and act as a platform to convey the positive spirit in which the CPA is being implemented so that any inhibitions on the part of anybody would be removed.
Just a few words on the implementation of the CPA: as of now, the redeployment of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) from south Sudan to the north is going on track. We have about 40% of the strength which has moved up although some of it has to be verified because some movements took place before the UN Military Observers got deployed on the ground.
As for the CPA, as of 9th July, 50% of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) troops are required to redeploy north of the line 1.1.'56. I am sure that when the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) senior member speaks to you, he will confirm to you that they intend to meet the deadline.
As far as the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) movement is concerned, we had a very historic movement starting from three, five days back when the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA), during the Phase I, had started redeploying from eastern Sudan towards southern Sudan.
Why I say it is historic is because this movement is being coordinated and monitored in a very joint and a very coordinated manner by both the Parties as well as the UN. We got all the figures over and there are 2,000 people plus and a large body of major equipment moving down to the south which includes about 13 tanks, 4 APCs and a lot of large guns. The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) has provided a lot of logistic support for this movement and I visited this convoy at Kosti itself and for your knowledge and to show you the level in which they are moving, we will flash before you some photographs taken of this movement and will give you some photographs also for your carrying so that it will give you a little feedback of how this movement is taking place.
These photographs are from the Kassala area when the convoy started moving as well as in Kosti the convoy split up in two parts.
Thank you very much.
However, as I brought up in the last press conference, there are a few areas which remain of concern to us and these I have already highlighted in the second CPC meeting - the third one, actually, because the second one there was a problem in it's holding and this is going to be held tomorrow.
Mainly the points of concern are the integration of the OAGs which have realigned themselves after 9th March about whose incorporation remains a problem because the Other Armed Groups Collaborative Committee (OAGCC) has not met so far. This is a point of concern and we will be flagging it for the CPC.
Secondly; the formation and bringing in deployment of the Joint Integrated Units (JIUs) remains far behind schedule and this is one area which is of concern.
The last concern, of course, is the movement of the forces to the Assembly Areas which was supposed to be completed nearly two, three months back; which is well behind schedule. And until the forces move into the Assembly Areas, we will not be able to fully monitor and audit their movements.
These are my opening remarks and I will hand you over first to Brigadier-General Hussein Ali Kambal who is the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) senior member of the CJMC and Brigadier-General Marc Paul who is the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) senior member of the CJMC.
Thank you.
Brg. Gen. Marc Paul: Good evening ladies and gentlemen; I am privileged here to be one of you today to brief you about the progress of the CPA or the ceasefire implementation modalities.
First, I will start with the process of redeployment south to north of the 1.1.'56 border as stipulated in the CPA. The process has been slow for some time but as a committee we have managed to work together at least to push for this process and as I am talking now there is a little bit of progress and the percentage as stated by the Chairman [of the CJMC] had some numbers which were not verified because the committees by then were not available. The Sudan government and the SPLM had not formed the committees at that time and the forces were being redeployed. We will still verify these figures. So there is progress on that side.
The second is the issue of redeployment from north to south of border 1.1.'56 that is from eastern Sudan. We were supposed to be out of this area by 9th of January 2006 but due to logistics problems, we could not meet the timeline as stated in the CPA.
However, we have started the withdrawal from eastern Sudan and that redeployment will be in 3 phases. The first phase is the one that started on the 21st of April and which we think will end by the 30th of this month and will continue up to the 15th of next month May. And then we will have the third phase in June. That will give us the total redeployment of forces of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) from the area of eastern Sudan to the areas of southern Sudan.
As stated by my colleague Kambal, as we leave, the areas will be handed back to the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) as was agreed according to the CPA.
The 3rd issue is the movement of troops to the Assembly Areas. We are also working on that; moving troops to the Assembly Areas in southern Sudan as well as the areas of the Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains.
The 4th issue; there are some few remarks that we put on the issue of security. On 7th of March there was an incident that took place in the area of Abyei and these are some of the issues that we think are some setbacks to the CPA because some officers of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) or forces aligned to them ambushed an armless convoy of people who were moving from Khartoum here to Bahr-el-Ghazal. The only thing that we think should happen supposing such incidents happen is that anybody who is a criminal must be brought to book. But on these actions, the officer is still at large and we are handling this case in a mature way. Otherwise it is a great setback to the implementation [of the CPA] because killing about 11 people including children whom we are supposed to protect - and we think that if the war has ended then there is no need of children dying; why should they die again? It was during the war when such atrocities were being committed and nobody is going to be spared even if he commits any problems during the war, still he will not be spared.
On the issue of the Other Armed Groups, we think that the CPA has a certain timeline or timeframe for everything and as a committee we said some times back and we say it now that this issue of Other Armed Groups should have an end. There was a certain date which was set that any Other Armed Group should choose to align itself to either of the armies and as of 9th of March, we think that anybody who should claim to be calling himself an armed group because they were being used by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) during the war but we think now there is no war so why should they be existing now because the government has not right now to spend money [on such groups] because they were a counter-insurgency but now it seems there is no insurgency and there is no need of them existing so they should be disbanded and we think that anybody who does not align himself to either forces should now be declared a bandit and should be dealt with by the apparatus of the state.
The final thing that I would also like to put along because it is connected also to the security is the problem of the LRA in southern Sudan. This issue of the LRA is causing us problems and causing problems of insecurity to the population and even preventing refugees from returning from the neighboring countries and is even displacing some people, as we are talking now, from their home areas to come to the town.
We think that the issue of the LRA is a concern of security and the Government of South Sudan has offered to mediate between the LRA and the Ugandan government. The second option was to ask them to leave the borders of Sudan because they have nothing to do; they are not fighting a war against us but fighting against the government of Uganda so they should go and fight in Uganda. The third option is maybe if they don't accept these, then the Government of South Sudan may declare war against them to eject them out of its borders.
These, in short, is what I would say and thank you.
(pdf* format - 127 KB)