“Peace needs time” - After-Work-Briefing with Ray Kennedy

In the last parliamentary week of the year, ZIF organized a lunch briefing on the Referendum in Sudan to be held on January 9, 2011. According to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, this vote decides on the independence of Southern Sudan. With the referendum the UN Mission in the country, UNMIS also draws to a close.

Keynote speaker J. Ray Kennedy, former UNMIS Chief Electoral Affairs Officer, gave an account of the electoral preparations, dominated by time constraints, tribal frictions and varying interests and aims of stakeholders involved. Mr. Kennedy discussed the perspectives of the country after the referendum with the members of the Bundestag’s subcommittee on Civilian Crisis Prevention and Integrated Conflict Management, the committee on foreign affairs and representatives of the Federal Foreign Office.

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