I would like to thank the Secretary General for organizing this special meeting.

I will be very brief and hopefully frank without being impolite.

First, the situation in Sudan is the most important issue of peace and war in Africa. There is no other issue that may be compared with it. If we succeed in Sudan then it will be a major success of the continent as a whole. If we fail it will be a catastrophe for the whole continent. It is vital for the continent as a whole, nothing compares with it. That is why the African Union has deployed its best manpower to try to resolve this problem. We have our former leaders, led by one of our best leaders, President Mbeki, dealing with this issue. They have given us a very clear path out of war in the Darfur conflict. That path has been endorsed by the African Union and by the Security Council. They have also been helping us in resolving the implementation problems of the CPA. We as Africans are very grateful to all those who have cooperated with our Panel and who have continued to reinforce the effort of the Panel rather than establish parallel initiatives.

Second, while there has been a lot of progress in the implementation of the CPA, if things continue as they have done in the past, there will not be a referendum on time in southern Sudan. Let’s be very clear about that. There will not be a referendum on time in southern Sudan unless things change and change quickly. There are vital issues that have not yet been adequately addressed. There is the issue of post referendum arrangements. There is the issue of Abyei and there is the issue of borders. All three are interlinked and they need to be addressed in an interlinked fashion. They have not been addressed so far adequately and unless they are addressed we will have a breakdown of peace and we are only 100 days away from that. So business as usual is not going to work. We need a departure from the past, now. I think we need to change the process of negotiating, implementation of the CPA. Now there are a countless number of committees and subcommittees which is the normal way of delaying implementation. We need to find a more effective mechanism of negotiation. And both parties have the final responsibility to implement the CPA.

I hope my friend Salva will not mind when I reiterate what President Obama has just said: no-one can impose peace in the Sudan. No-one, not even the United States. Peace has to be developed, has to be worked for, by the two parties. The decisive role has to be theirs and theirs alone. We can only help.

And I hope my friend Ali Osman Taha will not mind when I tell him that the ultimate incentive for the Sudanese to implement the CPA is the peace and stability of their country. It is not the support of the international community. So both have to step up to the plate and live up to their responsibilities.

Third, however, without the support of the international community, there could not have been a CPA in the first instance. Yes it was IGAD which provided the framework. But the international community as a while and the United States in particular played a crucial role in bringing about the CPA. And we need that in the remaining months. We need an active and supportive role from the international community as a whole and the United States in particular. We in the region are very pleased that the U.S. has appointed a very effective Special Envoy, who has been helping do just that. But we hope that in the time limit we have, the U.S. and the international community as a whole will reinforce their efforts and make sure that their efforts are consistent with the very limited time that we have. And therefore, Your Excellency, I suggest that we revamp our process of negotiation and that all parties including the international community reinforce their support to the peace process taking into consideration the limited time we have.

I thank you Mr Chairman.

Visit ‘Sudan Facts and Figures’ at www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/facts-figures.php

The site not only provides easy access to useful facts, data, and maps
contained in the more than three dozen HSBA Issue Briefs and Working Papers already published, but also presents current, field-based updates on key developments in Sudan’s security scene.

Highlights of the new web section include:

- A ‘who’s who’ of Darfurian armed opposition groups.
- A ‘who’s who’ of Chadian armed opposition groups.
- The latest on the Darfur Peace Process.
- The latest on the on-off Sudan-Chad proxy war.

These and other (forthcoming) areas of the website will be updated
regularly.

The HSBA has built in feedback mechanisms throughout the site to solicit comments and suggestions for making it more useful. In this way the site will be as interactive as possible.

For information about the project, please contact:
Claire Mc Evoy, HSBA Project Manager, at claire.mcevoy@smallarmssurvey.org.

Your Excellencies,
Members of the Negotiating Teams,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

On behalf of the African Union Panel on Sudan, I would like to welcome to this important occasion everybody present here to participate in the formal launch of the post-referendum negotiations.

In this regard I would like to thank the negotiating parties, the SPLM and the NCP, for taking the initiative to ensure the attendance today of representatives of the broad spectrum of Sudanese society, as well as the international community.

This underlines the vital importance of the process we launch today, the negotiations which will help to determine the future of Sudan after the January 2011 South Sudan referendum, covering both possible outcomes of the referendum, either unity or secession.

Surely the presence of so many representatives of the Sudanese people in this hall communicates the message to the negotiators that the people of this country expect of these leaders that they will approach their task with the required seriousness and sense of urgency, bearing in mind their shared responsibility to advance the interests and welfare of all Sudanese.

Five years ago, on 9 July 2005, Sudan’s Interim National Constitution came into effect and the then Chairman of the SPLM, the late Dr John Garang, flew to Khartoum and was sworn in as First Vice President of the Republic of Sudan. Indeed, this major step in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the formation of the Government of National Unity, was an historic moment in the history of this nation, and of Africa as a whole.

The conclusion of the CPA marked an end to the wars between North and South that had scarred Sudan’s half century of independence, and which had blighted the lives of two entire generations of Sudanese citizens, notably those from southern Sudan.

I would like to recognise and salute the leaders of Sudan who negotiated and signed this historic accord.

But the creation of the Government of National Unity, formed by the necessary partnership of two former enemies on the battlefield, the NCP and the SPLM, also marked a new beginning in the life of the nation. The late Dr John made this point when he visited the Nuba Mountains on his way to Khartoum, promising that as First Vice President, he would hold the cause of the Nuba people, along with all those who struggled for a New Sudan, in his right hand.

Peace is a formidable achievement, but on achieving peace, the struggle to achieve the material and social aspirations of the people, must resume.

By the same token, the achievement of the right of self-determination is an historic triumph for the people of southern Sudan. But the exercise of that right is but one step towards fulfilling the aspirations of the people for a better life.

Today, five years after the Interim National Constitution came into force and the Government of National Unity was formed, we are entering the final year of the Interim Period, and face a political challenge of great significance both to Sudan and Africa as a whole.

In six months time, the people of southern Sudan will be voting in their historic referendum on self-determination, choosing between the two options of unity or secession. The Sudanese people in all their formations, the African Union, and the rest of the international community, are together obliged to respect the freely expressed wishes of the people of Southern Sudan, and will surely do so regardless of the choice they make.

Sudan has experienced recurrent violent conflicts for more than half-a-century because of deep-rooted problems with the Sudanese state, essentially centred on the challenge successfully to manage the diversity which defines Sudan.

Indeed the very agreement to recognise the right of the people of Southern Sudan to self-determination constitutes an intervention to address the important issue of the relations between the peoples of North and South Sudan.

Accordingly, the argument has correctly been advanced that the outcome of the Southern Sudan referendum, whether for unity or secession, will offer the first real opportunity since Sudan’s independence in 1956 for the people of South and North Sudan to restructure their relationship to define an equitable and mutually beneficial mode of peaceful coexistence.

Even as it provided for the right of the people of Southern Sudan to self-determination, the CPA obliged the two signatory parties to work together to make unity attractive, a demanding task that requires them jointly to address and resolve the causes of conflict, and to restructure fundamentally the nature of the Sudanese state.

That task has not been completed. If the southern Sudanese choose unity, the task to pursue this objective will remain. Indeed it will need to be addressed with renewed vigour.

We have recently returned from Blue Nile State, and observed the preparations that are underway for the Popular Consultation in that state. This process of consulting the elected representatives and community leaders, civil society and others, is a rich, complex and promising mechanism to enable the people to deliberate upon the kinds of governance structures necessary for Sudan to achieve equitable unity in diversity, and realise the common dream for the mutually beneficial development of all its people.

As the post referendum negotiations begin, the negotiators must reflect on the fact that these parallel discussions will be taking place at the community level, again directed at evolving ways of the correct management of Sudan’s diversity. Of course, as we all know, South Kordofan will also engage in a similar process of Popular Consultation.

If the Southern Sudanese choose secession, the tasks arising from this will not be less demanding. Should they vote to establish a separate sovereign state in Southern Sudan, the Southern Sudanese will not be voting to change the facts of geography, nor the direction of the flow of the Nile River.

Southern Sudan has been intricately linked to the larger entity of the Sudanese nation, and Southern Sudanese have been closely involved in building the common Sudanese national patrimony. In the event of secession, Northern and Southern Sudan would not be ordinary neighbours, but would be neighbours with generations of a shared history – people who have attended the same universities, worked in the same institutions, danced to the same music.

In preparation for the launch of the post-referendum negotiations, the African Union Panel on Sudan prepared a Framework Document to share with the negotiating parties. We did not intend the document to serve as an agenda, still less a draft agreement. Rather it is a set of general considerations designed humbly to contribute some ideas which might help the two teams.

Rather than formulating a checklist of items to be ticked off, outside and independent of an overarching conceptual framework, we propose instead that first of all the parties should focus on the elaboration of a strategic vision of how the people of North and South Sudan should arrange their relationship.

In this respect we suggest that the positioning of the two phenomena of unity and secession within a paradigm based on the notion of polarity would be overly simplistic and seek to entrench an antagonistic relationship.

In the Framework Document we outlined four different possible outcomes, consideration of which would determine different ways of approaching the post-referendum issues.

In our Option 1, we visualised the situation in which Sudan would divide into two independent countries with no durable links. This would be the pure separatist outcome. All links would be defined through ad hoc negotiations across hard borders, with Northerners resident in the South continuing such residence on the basis of visa requirements imposed unilaterally by each country, and vice versa.

This was the outcome that many African states envisaged fifty years ago when they embraced sovereign independence and sought to sever ties with their former colonial masters and to forge a new national identity. In the 21st century, the world has changed, and especially Africa has changed. No nation is an island sufficient unto itself. The African Union is itself an expression of the African continent’s desire for integration and unity.

Continental initiatives such as NEPAD and the Regional Economic Communities, such as IGAD, are expressions of the same impulse.

The striving towards economic and political integration is more than a manifestation of Africa’s deep-seated recognition that our strength comes from our common identity. Closer ties among ourselves are a necessity for our continent’s security and development.

However, this does not contradict the right of self-determination for the Southern Sudanese. They have and shall exercise that right, at the time and in the way determined in the CPA. But the drive towards African integration and unity provides a context to the establishment of the nation-state different from what obtained fifty years ago.

We believe that the negotiators should take this reality into account as they consider what should happen in the event that the people of South Sudan vote for secession.

The other three options we presented in the Framework Document provide variants on the possible relationship between north and south, again as ideas that might provide a strategic framework for the detailed negotiations.

In our Option 2, we visualised the situation in which there would be two independent countries existing within a broad and negotiated framework of cooperation making for soft borders that permit freedom of movement for both people and goods.

Significantly, the second conference of the governors of the states adjacent to the north-south border is scheduled to take place shortly. The peoples who live in these states have historical relationships, and engage in ongoing economic and other activities that straddle the border and will continue to do so, whatever the outcome of the referendum.

Ensuring that these connections, at the people-to-people level, are continued and indeed strengthened, is a challenge that must be addressed by the leaders of both North and South Sudan.

In our Option 3, we considered the possibility of the creation of two independent countries which negotiate a framework of cooperation, which extends to the establishment of shared governance institutions in a confederal arrangement.

In our Option 4, we visualised the possibility of Sudan remaining one country with a federal arrangement between North and South, in a country based on the transformation of Sudan, consistent with the objectives in the CPA intended to redress the historical inequalities and injustices which led to war.

Of course this last option would become a realistic possibility if the people of Southern Sudan vote for unity. However it is not an option for the maintenance of the status quo, but calls on the parties to work for the fundamental transformation of Sudan.

The people of Southern Sudan have the right to make the fundamental choice between unity and secession. But the responsibility to determine what will then happen to the entirety of the Sudanese people, whether as one nation or two, falls upon the leaders of the NCP and SPLM.

This is the reason I spoke of the four Options we have presented to the negotiators, to give an indication of the scope of work and the importance to all the people of Sudan of the choices the post-referendum negotiators will make and present to the nation.

The general elections held almost two months ago confirmed that the SPLM and the NCP are the parties that will shoulder the responsibility to guide Sudan through the challenging period of the next 12 months.

It is first and foremost a responsibility to the peoples of Sudan, north and south, to ensure that the final year of the CPA Interim Period is successfully concluded, in a peaceful and orderly manner. I have no doubt that this can be achieved, and that the vote in the referendum will be respected and the decision of the people implemented swiftly and fairly.

It is also a responsibility to Africa as a whole. Africa has charted its course towards political and economic integration, and has invested great efforts in building a peace and security architecture. Sudan’s success in navigating the challenges of the next 12 months, which includes respecting the choice of the people of Southern Sudan, and managing the outcome of the referendum in the wider African context, will be an example to the millions of Africans and a very important factor for stability and prosperity across the continent.

For centuries, Sudan has been a meeting place of Africans, from north, south, east and west. For instance there are millions of Sudanese citizens of Nigerian ancestry. Millions of Sudanese belong to religious communities whose members are spread across the length and breadth of the African continent. Sudan has played host to refugees from no fewer than five of its neighbours and pioneered the generous international refugee asylum laws that we have today. Sudan is not only a bridge between the Arab and the African worlds, but also between east and west Africa, between the desert and the tropics. It is thus a crucible of diversity.

A strong and confident Sudan, whether as one state or two, embedded within a wider African project of development, security and unification, will prove to be one of the cornerstones of Africa’s progress in the 21st century.

The successful management of the referendum and the post-referendum arrangements will show that Africa’s leaders can address and overcome deep legacies of bitterness and mistrust, as they have done in many countries on our Continent, inspired by a shared vision of peaceful, prosperous and united Africa which will take its rightful place as an equal actor among the continents of our common universe.

We are confident that the Sudanese people and their leaders will indeed live up to this expectation and produce outcomes of which all of Africa will be proud.

Our Panel will be honoured to discharge its responsibility as the Facilitator of the post-referendum negotiations, as requested by the Negotiating Parties, fully respecting the Terms of Reference agreed by the Parties. This includes the important provision with which we agree, that the negotiations should be owned by the Sudanese people, underlining the imperative that the sister people of Sudan should have the unfettered freedom to determine their destiny.

Once more, we thank everybody who has privileged this Launch of the Post-Referendum Negotiations by their presence, and extend our best wishes to the negotiators, confident that they will produce outcomes that will serve the vital interests of all the people of Sudan.

Thank you.

Mr President,

Distinguished Members of the Security Council:

We would like to thank you for giving us this opportunity to engage the Security Council on the issue of Sudan.

As Your Excellencies will recall, the last time we were here last December we informed the Council that the African Union had expanded our mandate to follow up on its decisions on Darfur, on the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the process of democratisation in Sudan, and indeed our Panel has been doing what it can to honour this mandate.

In this regard I am happy to inform the Council that by common agreement, our Panel works in close cooperation with three institutions which are playing a central role in assisting the people of Sudan to resolve their problems.

I refer here to UNAMID, UNMIS and the AU-UN Joint Chief Mediator for Darfur, all of which are correctly represented at this meeting, and will address the Council.

I am certain that there is no need for us to convince the Council about the importance of this cooperation, which enables our four institutions to share information, coordinate their actions and support one another, while fully respecting their various mandates.

On behalf of our Panel I would like to take this opportunity once more to thank JSR Ibrahim Gambari, SRSG Haile Menkerios and JCM Jibril Bassole for the possibility they have given to our Panel to work with them and the institutions they lead, which, I am certain, will greatly assist in accelerating progress towards meeting the goals towards Sudan which are shared by the African Union and the United Nations.

In this regard I am certain that the Council is aware of the fact of the joint AU-UN meeting on Sudan held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 7 and the statement the two organisations issued at the end of that meeting, which reflects the scope of their shared understanding and coordinated approach.

Similarly, the Council will also be familiar with the fact of the May 8 meeting again held in Addis Ababa, convened by the AU and the UN, which brought together the representatives of the governments and inter-governmental organisations which are actively involved in work to help resolve the challenges that Sudan faces, including all the countries neighbouring Sudan.

We were indeed very pleased that this inclusive meeting again reached a common agreement on the approach towards the major challenges facing Sudan, and agreed that the AU and the UN should convene a bi-monthly Consultative Forum to ensure proper coordination of the interventions of the entirety of the international community.

Once again we are certain that the Council is familiar with the decisions adopted at this meeting.

The Joint Convenors of the Consultative Forum, the AU and the UN, are determined that this Forum should meet as was agreed and effectively carry out the principal tasks for which it was established, namely to ensure effective coordination of international action on Sudan.

As the Council is aware, the May 8 meeting agreed with the AU and the UN that the Global Political Agreement on Darfur should be concluded this year, ahead of the holding of the South Sudan Referendum. I am happy to say that the Government of Sudan has agreed with this proposal.

Accordingly, as did the May 7 and 8 Addis Ababa meetings, we fully support the Doha negotiations which are focussed specifically at concluding a Peace Agreement involving all the belligerents. We therefore fully support the efforts of the Joint Chief Mediator, supported by the Government of the State of Qatar, to bring all the belligerents into the peace negotiations, with a view to concluding these negotiations as speedily as possible.

Similarly we support the efforts of the Mediator and Qatar to mobilise Darfur civil society to support the Doha peace process.

Again as agreed at the May 7 & 8 meetings, we will take steps immediately to prepare for the convening of the fully inclusive process, in the form of a Darfur-Darfur Conference, targeted at concluding a Global Political Agreement. Again I am happy to inform the Council that the Government of Sudan has agreed to this.

In this regard I should also mention that when we return to Sudan later this month we will engage the officials designated by the Government of Sudan to work on the details relating to the implementation of the decisions of the AU on the issues of justice and reconciliation in Darfur.

Our intention in this context is that by the time the Darfur-Darfur Conference considers the item of justice and reconciliation, we should have agreed on all the relevant details with the Government of Sudan.

With regard to Darfur, we would also like to mention that again when we return to Sudan later this month, we will join the Government and UNAMID to consider a detailed programme to improve the security situation in Darfur. This meeting will also take into account proposals on this important issue which have been elaborated by the US Special Envoy, Gen Scott Gration.

Sustained improvement of the security situation in Darfur would help to create the conditions for the refugees and the IDPs to realise their wish to return to the villages from which they were forcibly removed. In this regard it is obvious that such voluntary return as may take place will have to be accompanied by a process of reconstruction and development to assist the returnees to resettle and build better lives for themselves.
With regard to matters relating to the CPA the Panel has convened for June 21 the first meeting of the teams which will negotiate the post-referendum arrangements, taking into account both possible outcomes of the South Sudan Referendum. This meeting will mark the beginning of the post-referendum negotiations.

As agreed with the CPA Parties, the Panel will then be on standby to assist the Parties in the event that they require intervention to resolve any of the matters on the post-referendum agenda.

Again as agreed with the Parties, the Panel will work with them to help resolve outstanding CPA matters, in particular the finalisation of matters relating to the North-South border as well as Abyei.

We will work on these matters together with UNMIS as we will with regard to supporting the newly-constituted South Sudan Referendum Commission, bearing in mind the urgency that attends all these CPA issues.

Similarly, later this month we will begin work especially with UNMIS and the Sudan Council of Churches aimed at helping to end the communal conflicts in South Sudan which continue to claim many lives.
We will also continue to work particularly with the Political Parties in South Sudan, as we did during the General Elections, to help prepare the conditions to ensure that the January 2011 South Sudan and Abyei Referenda are free and fair. In this regard we are confident that UNMIS will play a vital role to assist in organising these Referenda.

We will also continue to attend to the important issue of the further democratisation of Sudan. In this regard, in particular, we are working towards convening a Forum of the Sudanese Political Parties which will seek to develop a national consensus on the major challenges facing Sudan, including the process of democratisation.

Like the Sudanese themselves and our UN partners, our Panel is fully conscious of the complexity of all the matters I have mentioned and the time pressures under which the correct solutions have to be found.

In this regard, and to conclude, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the UN, the EU and other inter-governmental organisations, and individual governments, including members of this Council, for the support they have extended to the Panel to empower us to do the work expected of us.

We are pleased that both this Security Council and the AU Peace and Security Council remain seized of the question of Sudan, convinced that this will assist those of us on the AU Panel on Sudan, in UNAMID, UNMIS and the Darfur Mediation more effectively and expeditiously to discharge our responsibilities.

Thank you.

There has been one comment so far (by the indefatigable Abd al-Wahab Abdalla) suggesting that the Sudanese situation is different again.

The negotiations among the Sudanese participants were chaired by Prof. Dr. Al-Tayeb Haj Ateya (Sudan) and Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Wolfrum, and relied on the good offices of the international legal experts and mediators H. R. H. Prince Raad bin Zaid (Jordan), H. E. Prof. Dr. Tono Eitel (Germany), Dr. Kamal Hossain (Bangladesh), Prof. Rahmatullah Khan (India), H. E. Prof. Dr. Thomas A. Mensah (Ghana) and Justice Tafsir M. Ndiaye (Senegal).

The final result of three years of intensive negotiations is the Draft Darfur Peace Agreement, the Heidelberg Darfur Dialogue Outcome Document. In legal language, it retains the Heidelberg Group’s consensus on provisions that should be included in a future comprehensive Darfur Peace Agreement. The draft includes criteria and guidelines for power sharing, guarantees for human rights, provisions to ensure Darfur’s effective participation at all levels of federal government within Sudan, provisions on wealth sharing, development and management of land and natural resources, and provisions addressing transitional justice.

In detail, the Outcome Document foresees the possibility to establish, for an interim period, a Region of Darfur with its own competences and institutions as an additional level of government within Sudan. At the same time, the Outcome Document contains provisions to strengthen local government. Darfur should be represented at the central government in Khartoum, possibly by a Second Vice President and a Senior Assistant to the President. The marginalization of Darfur should be redressed through the inclusion of Darfurians at all levels and in all branches of government and public service, including the military.

Human rights and fundamental freedoms in Darfur should be reinforced, and their actual implementation should be enhanced, through additional guarantees in a bill of rights that forms part of the final Darfur peace agreement.

The sharing of wealth and public revenues within Sudan should follow the principles of fairness and equitable social and economic development throughout the country. At the same time, the document underlines the needs of rehabilitation, reconstruction and development of the war affected social and physical infrastructures in Darfur. It also suggests that a Darfur Reconstruction and Development Board could be responsible for the administration of funds and the sustainable management of regional development projects.

An extensive chapter addresses the development and management of land and natural resources with a view to ensuring their fair and sustainable use. This chapter contains provisions on traditional and historical rights to land, community land, the allocation of land to individuals, communities and legal persons, and the development and management of land through a Darfur Land Planning Commission.

Provisions on transitional justice rely on traditional Darfurian principles of justice, accountability and reconciliation as enshrined in customary, national and international law. The criminal responsibility of the most senior persons responsible for grave acts of violence in conjunction with the ongoing armed conflict in Darfur is confirmed.

The Heidelberg Darfur Dialogue and the publication of the Outcome Document were made possible through the support of the European Union, the German Foreign Office and the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science.

The document can be accessed through the website of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, through this link.

In the ‘Overview’ of the debate the HSR focuses on two main issues. The detailed responses to the IRC and to Les Roberts are in separate documents.

The first two surveys––there were five in toto––were not based on representative samples and the evidence suggests that the excess death tolls that were derived from them were way too high.

When the HSR plotted the increase in the IRC’s child mortality rate for the first two survey periods and compared it with the child mortality trend data from a Demographic and Health Survey that covered the same period, it was clear that something was seriously wrong. The IRC’s under five mortality trend is sharply variant from other sources of data, for example from the Demographic and Health Surveys, which show much lower and slowly declining mortality trends. The DHS uses a readily replicable and verifiable method, and both it and the IRC estimates cannot be correct.

The second major problem raised by HSR was that the IRC researchers used the sub-Saharan African (SSA) average mortality rate as the baseline mortality rate for their excess death calculations. However, DR Congo is far from being an average African country––it languishes at, or near, the bottom of just about every development indicator for the region. When HSR re-ran the IRC’s calculations for the last three surveys using a higher and––arguably––more realistic baseline rate, the excess death toll shrank from more than 2.8 million to less than 900,000. This reveals how a modest and wholly defensible increase in the baseline rate can lead to a huge change in the estimated excess death toll.

The HSR response offers a new thought exercise. By the time of the last survey the IRC was reporting that 99% plus of all deaths were “indirect”. What would happen if we assumed that the average nationwide mortality rate for the next ten years continued its slow decline from 2002––i.e. that is went down from 2.2 deaths per thousand per month to an average 2.0 deaths per thousand per month? Even with this projected decline in overall mortality the death toll for the next ten years would be 5.8 million. Re-running the calculations using a baseline mortality of 2.0 that many think is more plausible gives an estimate of zero excess deaths.

Both the general elections and the referendum come at the end of a transitional period that has, in many ways, been more about stagnation than about transition. The implementation of the CPA has often been delayed and was marred by a lack of trust between its signatories: the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). As a consequence, the agreement has largely failed to realize democratic transformation and to make the unity of the country attractive. Instead, political tensions in the run-up to the elections indicate that older conflicts still persist, and that the referendum will only reconfigure challenges. The already fragile situation could easily trigger a new outbreak of violence. It is therefore of the utmost urgency to prepare for the post-CPA period in Sudan. In discussions about the future of the country, and in the day-to-day business of diplomats and international observers, the perspective beyond 2011 has only recently started to receive attention. Not all events of the coming years are fully predictable, of course. Yet it is possible to delineate potential scenarios, and to identify the political options they open up for different actors