Transcripts For CNN Amanpour 20100411 : vimarsana.com

islamic world. and to secure the peace in some of the most troubled places. we will examine the future of iraq one month after elections that have yet to produce a clear winner. we asked former prime minister alawi who leads by just two votes about democracy about new violence and about the withdrawal of u.s. troops. and then we turn to another place where the u.s. is also heavily invested, and that s sudan. will next week s election there is unravel a peace deal that was brokered by the bush administration? we will speak with a representative of the southern sudan government and a former bush administration official concerned that sudanese president omar al bashir, for all the talk of elections could lead the country back to war. what i fear though is that bashir is not honorable, he goes back on his word and so the low-intensity conflict that we see today will in fact, escalate to a full-blown war that we saw the 22-year civil war that killed more than 2 million people. but first, the obama administration s new tone in conversations with the muslim world is showing some dividends since his big speech in cairo last june. more recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many muslims. in a cold war in which muslim majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. and, of course, the u.s. struggle against terrorism. it wasn t just muslim countries caught up in that, it was muslim individuals as well, such as the swiss-born islamic scholar tariq ramadan. the bush administration had accused him of helping the palestinian group hamas through charitable donation and though he denied it he was refused entry into the united states in 2004 as he was preparing to take up a position as professor of notre dame university in the american midwest. but last year, he won an appeal. and this week, i spoke with tarik ramadan on his first visit here since the ban was lifted. so thank you for being here. thank you for your invitation. so you must be really relieved to be back in the united states, right? yes, i m happy. and it s, for me, you know, the whole process is clearing my name from all this wrong allegations and accusations and now it s quite clear that you know, my record is clear and there s nothing wrong in what i have been doing. do you think you were caught up in the heat of that moment back in 2004 or do you think some of those sensitivities remain? i think that it s deeper than that because just after september 11th, i came here and i was invited and i spoke. i was even invited to the state department to give a lecture there so it was really about my criticism toward the american policy in afghanistan and iraq and what i called the unilateral support toward the israeli government, not respecting the palestinian rights. so, it was at that moment, under the bush administration. why are you back and taking such a public profile, high profile? look, because, in fact, this story with the previous administration is over. now, it s really for me to come to the essential and the essential is for know say as an example, as a european and a westerner, islam is a western religion and that muslims are now american muslims, european mu muse limbs and we have to live together. we have to reach out. the time for more explanation, more dialogue and what president said in cairo was this, not only a speech toward directed toward the muslims. and muslim countries, it was also toward the americans understanding that now we are living together. so president obama, as we mentioned, as the world knows, has sort of charted a different course toward the muslim world. that speech in cairo was quite revolutionary. has the promise of that speech been fulfilled, even in part over the last year? i think that we have to be constructively critical. many things are the same and remain the same what he came with is a new vision and a new discourse, a new way to talk to the muslims. and about our diversity and living together. and this has to be acknowledged. what he said, for example, about us being together and the values, this you know, cairo speech, was very deep and very well thought. are you going to say anything different about this administration than did the last one? no. it s quite clear that it s changing and we have to acknowledge the shift. i don t want to criticize for the sake of criticizing it is really constructive criticism. so yes, we are waiting for this administration to deliver and more practical things. so, we heard the words, now we need, you know, practical things to be done. and then, for example, when you have tensions with the israeli government today, still the palestinians are suffering in hazzah and the west bank, we need things to be changed and we need also this discourse on islam to be translated into something which is a real policy for the future. so i i would say exactly the same as to what we are expecting, but they are positive trends that we have to take into account. you, yourself, mr. ramadan are a very controversial figure. you describe yourself as a muslim reformer, as an islamic reformer, and yet, there are many people who say that you speak with a forked tongue. and i m going to show you the cartoon, and it s one of many, many cartoons that have been put out about you. basically, people are saying because of some of the positions that you take or do not take, that you present yourself as one thing but that you are an isl islamist in sheep s clothing, as some people have said, our closet fundamentalist. or as the french academic caroline forest says, i don t see anyone today as effective as tarik ramadan in furthering fundamentalism in france, for instance. you are very controversial because you do not take absolute powe positions against certain things that people in democracies, people in the west believe should be condemned out of hand. i think that this is such as stoning of women with. this is completely wrong, because you have to come to what i m saying and not the way it s described. can i show you then what you were saying? yes, of course. in a french debate with then-interior minister nicolas sarkozy back in 2003. now, these are the pictures. whats what what basically you were saying is we should have a moratorium on stoning of women while we can get a consensus among islamic scholars and mr. sarkozy was furious. he said, what do you mean a moratorium, don t you condemn it out of hand? what are you saying that we stop it a little bit, discuss it and then continue it? so tell us, should you not condemn out of hand stoning of women for whatever reason? no this is not the point and the way you are translating what i am saying, what i said is wrong. what i was saying is that myself and my position is this, i m against implementing not only stoeng, the hudud what we call in arabic the hudud, the penal code, stoeng, death penalty and corporal punishment. my position is this is not implemental but we are dealing with muslims. and we are dealing with governments and they believe in the corn and they believe in the scriptural sources and we have text on this. to condemn sitting in paris is not going to change anything on the ground. why for example, france or the united states of america are dealing with these petty monarch kiss and dealing with governments implementing them. my position is quite clear.i m against implementing them and what i m asking the scholars, thee things what do the texts say what are the conditions and in which context? in the same name of islam, we have to stop and to come to a moratorium on this and to have a discussion exactly like amnesty international when it comes to death penalty it is saying let us first go for a moratorium to stop it right now and then to have a discussion. coming up, we will have more of that interview with tarik ramadan, as well as with james zogby who is the president of the arab-american institute on the differences between islam in america and in europe. that s next. thanks for coming. it was really nice to meet you, a.j. yeah, you too. a.j.? 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social life, deprived of their i.d. this is not how the french republic perceives the dignity of women with. that was french president nicholas car cozy speaking about one of the most contentious issues in france, indeed, across europe. rejoining our conversation with with the islamic scholar, tariq ramadan, and also james zog business founder and president of the arab-american institute, i began by asking ramadan whether he agreed with the french president.arab-american n by asking ramadan whether he agreed with the french president. no, i don t agree with this i didn t agree with the french policy banning the head scar inform schools. i said it s wrong. and new laws for banning the covering the race or the burqa in the streets is not going to happen. first, we have got the european union saying this is not legal this is not constitutional. so, my position is that the starting point is to have a position of principle. it is imposing to women to wear the head scarf or burqa, against human rights to impose to women to take it off this should be the principle of free do. james zogby this particular issue of clothes, symbols, religious or cultural that doesn t play such a role here for muslim notice united states, does it? no. and europe s problem is bigger than clothing. it s a question of self-definition. there is no definition of being american. the absorptive quality of to being irish, polish, yes, arabs and pakistanis within a few years become american and america becomes changed with them that doesn t happen in europe. you can be a third generation kurd in germany and always be a turk or an algerian in france and always be an aran or paki in london that is the problem europe faces is that it has a difficulty expanding the definition of nationality to include a multicultural society and that fundamental, i guess, bigotry, or narrowness of identity, is the real problem that france is facing and they can t force this, as tarik q is saying, they can t force people to adopt a french way, ever that means and not change france to reflect the diverse population that its country is becoming. do you think, tariq, in general that europe will be able to figure this out, as james said it is not just muslims but immigrants in general? yes, i agree with that, that there is a problem of migration and immigrants in europe. but i would say we have to be very cautious not to judge europe as if it was, you know, the same situation everywhere. we have now the second, third and onward generation, in the uk and far from the controversies of advise bills. at the end of the day, switzerland, my country, we have the minarets, the head scarfs in france, the mosques in germany, all the visible symbols are problematic, because it is as if this is a new presence creating problems. still, if you go now and assess what is happening in the societies and the gallup, for example, survey is showing that the european muslims are feeling europeans, they are feeling germans. so we have to be cautious not to look at it in the negative way because i really think that deep down there is a movement of integration, contribution and it will work, but we need time. and next, so what does it mean to be a muslim in america nearly a decade after 9/11? more of our conversation in a moment. we return now to our conversation with islamic scholar, tariq ramadan and james zogby who is the founder and president of the arab-american institute. tariq ramadan comes from one of the most famous families in the islamic world. his grandfather was has san al bana, the founder of the muslim brotherhood in egypt. i asked ramadan whether his family history might confuse people, hearing his call about islam and reform. ask but your personal background, because you are the grandson of has san al bana, the founder of the muslim brotherhood, which did usher in a period of extremism, of belief in a very strict version of sharia and his lambic law. and also fully not condemned a certain cleric who in 2003 talked about the rationalization for women with suicide bombers. and there are people that s please. please. please, no. there are people here who are very confused about how to judge what you believe and what you re talking about and what you re trying to preach abouts i lappi about in islam and reform. you read what he is writing and look at what was doing. you don t come with your grandfather and what was said. first, what was said about my grandfather in the specific period of time in the 30s and 40s is not what was said now and we have to be very cautious to look at, for example the muslim brotherhood is something that has to be historically contextualized. secondly you i do not live in egypt, was born and raised in europe and producing my time wachblt to be judged on this, so anyone who is telling you i was not clear in sigh side bombings, for example, or targeting innocent, he is wrong or she s wrong. this never happened. my position on this is the palestinian resistance or iraqi resistance is legitimate, the means should be ethical. you cannot target innocent people. you cannot target civilians. i was always clear f so much mistrust is shedding on what i m saying what does it means? is it revealing something about me or about the state of affairs within the society which is spreading around suspicion? you are knocked, james zogby is it revealing about tariq ramadan or about the state of the society we live in? listen, after president obama spoke in cairo, i remember i was actually on your network and then i did another and the reactions that his speech received from american conservatives was shocking. i said at the end in answer to a question, will president obama make change in people s attitudes? i said, among muslims. yes, but i m not so sure he is going to win with over american conservatives there is a problem and tariq is absolutely right. and the problem is here and i think president obama has correctly identified his mission as president both ways it is to create american understanding of the muslim world as well as muslim understanding of america. we got a problem here. what is said about him is said about me. i m a maranite catholic who after i spoke at the department of justice s 40th anniversary of the civil rights signing of the civil rights bill, bloggers writing for fairly respectable sites said, jihadist or hezbollah supporter or wahabi supporter, holder s buddy a wahabist. how nonsensical is that? and yet that is the poison that spreads and really begins to define myself and tariq and others in very unfair ways. okay, but do you think those are in the more some might say the creepy, loony corners of the blogosphere or snag is a real obstacle toward understanding in the majority of the country? not in the majority, but in a significant enough group of elites who begin to define and put it in print and then make some people in politics hesitant to be able to speak out. listen, when you had barack obama s opponents mainstream democrats and the republican nominee questioning his being a real american, not just his birth, but yes, ma am, no he is not an arab, he s decent human being, that stuff sticks and it means that we have leadership that has failed to address these issues. okay, so you re here, tariq ramadan to try to fix this. can you do anything, you think that will make a difference into these speeches that you are going to deliver, in these public appearances? at least i m trying to do something, which is to speak about the new we. the new we is you and me in the theme of our common values and principles, to come together and to nurture iran a sense of belong. because at the end of the day what is very important for american muslims to feel at home and contribute in a critical way, constructive way, exactly for europeans and we all have to understand as citizens that this is a very, very imperative responsibility if we want to be able to talk to muslim-majority countries and muslims. around the world. so the speech of obama talking to americans is very important but us together, at our level we should be much more committed to change these mentalities of victimhood. is a discussion that is going to go on for a long time, clearly. tariq ramadan, james zogby, thank you so much bore joining me. thank you. and to join another discussion about aa claim that victimization of muslims in america is a complete myth, logon to amanpour.com/facebook. next, it was hoped that peace and democracy in iraq would spread around the middle east. what about the u.s. mission in irrash now? how will to be affected by the uncertain steps there toward democracy? an now? how will to be affected by the uncertain steps there toward democracy? i m richard luis in atlanta. back to amanpour in a moment. the casket carrying the body of polish president lech kozinski. poles are mourning the death of kozinski, his wife and others after a plane crash in western with russia yesterday. world leaders living in washington for a two-day nuclear weapons conference in begins tomorrow. president obama has started one-on-one talks. add meeting with india s prime minister about 45 minutes ago and also has meetings scheduled today with leaders of kazakhstan, south africa, pakistan and nigeria a total of 47 country will participate in the conference. mr. obama hope it is will strengthen efforts to keep when pines way from terrorist. earlier today, 39 years of history gone in less than a minute. dallas cowboy fans said good-bye to their football team s old stomping grounds, irving s texas stadium went down in a controlled implosion that stadium was the until nfl team s home field 38 years. many of you seen more good games there. more amanpour is just minute away. ask me. even if you think your mattress is just fine. ask me what it s like to get your best night s sleep every night. why not talk to someone who s sleeping on the most highly recommended bed in america. it s not a sealy. or a simmons. or a serta. ask me about my tempur-pedic. ask me how fast i fall asleep. ask me about staying asleep. these are actual tempur-pedic owners! ask someone you know -check out twitterúj. try your friends on facebook. you ll hear it all.un-edited. ask me how it feels after 10 years. ask me if it s a good value. just ask me. there are 4 million tempur-pedic owners! and they re more satisfied than owners of any traditional mattress brand. ask me why i feel better every morning. ask me why someone who s never had an ache or a pain is in love with this bed. start asking real owners. ask me how we took the first step. take the first step right now! call or click today for your free information kit with dvd. call the number on your screen or visit tempurpedic.com. tempur-pedic. the most highly recommended bed in america. welcome back to our program. and we now turn to iraq, where successful, yet inconclusive elections, have been followed by worsening violence. this week, insurgents blasted baghdad, leaving dozens dead and more than 100 wounded. it was the latest in a series of recent attacks that have killed more than 100 people. and with no clear winner, the elections have led to political gridlock. at last count, prime minister nuri al malaki was two seats behind his main rival, the former prime minister, allawi, who is now struggling to form a coalition government. when i spoke to him this week, he told me that it would take about two months to form a new government, but some would consider that rather optimistic. and with the resurgence in violence, i also asked him if president obama s plan to reduce u.s. forces to 50,000 by this summer was also too optimistic. i think it s possible. i think it should be done. however, the security does not depend on the number of troops available here. the security depends on getting out in the way of sectarianism, or embarking on a course, a real course of reconciliation and reconstructing the institutions, security institutions, to get them based on a professional basis and loyal to the country as a whole, not loyal to a sect. and this is the way to improve and get the security improved in this country. but former u.s. ambassador to iraq, ryan crocker, remains spectac spectacle. he was there in iraq during the u.s. surge. he tells me that u.s. troops will have to remain in the country for a long time. they have moved a great distance, without question, but the distance in front of them is greater still. the challenges are almost infin nat. you have touch on a few. there are more kurd/arab relations and so forth t is going to be a very, very long road, but the violence, while worrisome, is not a primary issue. it is a question of whether the violence affect the politics government formation. we have to keep an eye on that phase. and once the government is formed, a whole new set of challenges will be in front of us. we may think we have been done with iraq it has been seven long years and time to switch channels, but you know it is just the beginning of the story. i continued my conversation with ambassador crocker and we were also joined by brett mcgurk, another former bush administration official who helped negotiate the agreement between the u.s. and iraq for the eventual withdrawal of u.s. troops. i asked him what the surge in violence now means for the long-term stability of iraq. we are in, right now, a period of highest risk, the 90 days after the election are always identified as a period of highest risk there are two timelines the white house sunder. one is the security agreement, all u.s. forces out by 2011, that is a binding international agreement negotiated with the iraqis. the second is a unilateral obligation that president obama said a month after coming to augus office, at the end of august, down to 50,000 troops. that rise? you have to be testing assumptions. we have no idea what is happening day to day and the assumptions under lining that withdrawal are called into question. would you agree that, ambassador crocker, given the level of violence now, and not just since the election but before the election as well? the violence is a concern but also predictable. the iraqis are tough people. i think they will withstand this. this it is not the violence that concerns me so much, as simply the tough politics of government formation. i think mr. allawi with was optimistic when he said a government could be formed in two months. i think the more realistic deadline is the beginning of ramadan at the at the start of august. but that so i worry about a decision to have u.s. down to 50,000 troops, perhaps in the same month that a new government is formed. and that s an extraordinarily long time, four months, five months until that day that you just mentioned. can iraq actually afford that amount of time in a political vacuum? well, first it is not really a political vacuum. the maliki cabinet is fully empowered. the command and control of the civilian leadership over the military is there and we have seen that in their responses to this violence. so, i would not characterize it as a vacuum. obviously works like to see this move quickly, but it is going to be extraordinarily complicated. everybody will be talking to everybody else. and while allawi may have 91 votes, he is still 72 votes short of the necessary majority to form a government. so this will not be easy and it will not be quick. you were there all through the time when muqtada al sadr was not exactly pro-american, still isn t. does it surprise you, unsettle you, that, in fact this group could become the kingmaker? i think it s just part of the political progression in iraq. i don t find it terribly unsettling. the sadrists have always had an appeal to the dispossessed urban shia population and they finally found a way to get their act together sufficiently to garner a respectable number of seats. their militia days seem to be behind them. they seem to have recognized if they have appeal going forward it has to be political movement, part of a political iraq. let s talk about a little bit about that. muqtada al sadr has been in iran for the last couple of years. what concerns you about iran s role? well, iran is going to be influential but not going to be decisive. i don t agree with those that say they are decisive. again, they invited a lot of parties to tehran for talks that is going to happen. allawi is going to go the saudis will be there we will be there it is interesting, the sadrist appeal is this sunni, arab nationalist, iraqi apackers strong roots in iraq, going back hundredses of years. and muqtada al sadr going in iran is part of that i agree with ambassador crocker, that is positive. we haven t seen a sign post of deterioration, haven t seen militias take streets to protect neighborhoods, thing we started to see in 2006. we have to watch it every day. it s hearing you both talk about everything so positive and trying to sort of connect the reality with wiyour rhett richt. i know things got better after the surge in 2007 but we have all been stunned at the level of violence that has come up before the election and since the election and just the string of suicide bombings. i mean, appearing to act with the same kind of immunity they did before the surge. how is it that you are still so positive about this? i m going bogg ask you, ambassador crocker. you seem to be playing down this violence which is taking so many lives right now. crocker. you seem to be playing down this violence which is taking so many lives right noambassador crocke you seem to be playing down this violence which is taking so many lives right nocrocker. you seem to be playing down this violence which is taking so many lives right now. we have seen too many episodes of this in the past, seen my time in iraq, seen as al qaeda shifted from attacks on civilian populations to aracks on iraqi government ministries, now seem to be shifting back to attacks on the civilian population. they are horrific. clearly it has to be an imperative for the iraqis and ourselves to crack these networks and bring the violence down but what we have seen repeatedly is that the attacks, as bloody and vicious as they are have not stopped the political process in iraq. all right. don t expect them to stop it now. we have about 20 seconds, haven t stop it had but certainly hampering it. how does this change? again, this is why i say we are in a period of very high risk. we have to look at the draw down schedule, make sure the iraqi government is abilitying in a caretaker copisity. people need to note state was protecting them. they turned to militias in 2006. state doing a decent job and ned to make sure they keep on doing it but going to be very delicate and very challenging. brett mcgurk, ambassador crocker, thank you so much for being here with us. and coming up, elections and the potential for war in another part of the world the u.s. is so heavily invested in. 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( tires squealing ) to have bad tires. come to meinekand save $20 on two or more tires. at meineke, you re always the driver. when we talk about sudan, it is usually about darfur, where the sudanese government mounted what s being called a genocidal campaign. but sudan s elections next week bring into focus an even longer and bloodier conflict, the sudden sudan fight to win independence from the north. cnn s david mckenzie takes us there. reporter: this is not how sudan s historic free election was supposed to happen. the sudan people s liberation movement has pulled out of the northern and darfur vote just days before the ballot. it has with drawn its presidential candidate, a muslim. he was the only serious contender against omar al bashir, president of sudan, the world s only sitting president indicted on war crimes. international monitoring groups say his party has engaged in widespread vote rigging, claims his party denies. international community has worked hard to make a fair election possible. but analysts say if that fails, the reality could be far worse. if they do not go according to plan and if peaceful resolution wasn t found, then i think it s very possible that we see a return to conflict in sudan. reporter: war raged for two decades in sudan, pitting christian and animus rebels in the south against the north, leaving more than 2 million dead and a fractured nation. aft protracted negotiations, war ended in 2005 with a peace agreement that called for elections and a referendum in the south on whether to split from the north. at stake, sudan s massive oil reserves, found mostly in the south but still controlled by khartoum. the election allows for lifting of sanction but north/south divide it is not the only conflict in the watch a separate deadly conflict in the darfur region, where the january jew which waging war against african tribes have killed hundreds of thousands much the government and international crime cal court pointed the finger at al bashir and hopes to gain ledge jesse massey at home and abroad. the people in southern sudan are already looking past this election to the referendum on independence, which they hope will end decades of conflict and make them africa s newest nation. dave mckenzie, cnn, nairobi. now despite all the allegations of vote-rigging and, of course, of boycotting, the u.s. representative there says that he is nonetheless confident of a free and fair election so what will happen, what about the fevers new violence in sueden? i spoke with the former u.s. assistant secretary of state for african affairs, who severed under president george w. bush and with a senior member of the sudan people s liberation movement. let me first turn to you. you boycott elections why are you boycotting it? aren t you afraid the violence will result? first of all, thank you for having me on the show, christian. the agreement that we are signing in 2005 was to address two issues. one of them is secular transforms within sudan. sudan has a history of marginalization, of marginalized areas, so having this election is very important. and also 2011, january 9th. so based on the process that we have gone through in the electoral process, it is very clear that the conditions are not conducive for us to participate in the election in the north but in the south, we are still having elections. but what will that mean? you know very well in darfur, we cannot have election in darfur because of the ongoing genocide that is happening in darfur and also in the north it is very clear that the national congress prior, the party of bashir is fully in control of the ballots that they are printed in the central bank of sudan. that is certainly what the secretary of your party has said. let turn to ambassador frasier. it was under the bush administration that the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement was signed and there was a lot of hope for that. this election has so much at stake for the united states and for u.s. policy. where do you see it going and is the fblm boycotts in the north, just going to be a failure? as you said, the election is a central peace of the comprehensive peace agreement and its implementation and as ezekiel said, the intention of democratic transformation. the problem with the election, of course is it is coming so close to went referendum will be held in january, 2011 in the comprehensive peace agreement, it was presume it had would come almost mid way in the interim period of six years it should have happened a good year or two years ago. but i think as happened in sudan, often they will muddle through. i think it is extremely unfortunate that the sudan people s liberation movement is withdrawing. i m very i was very confident that their candidate, how respect tremendously works have had a chance to give the people of sued an choice so that they wouldn t have to be left with an indicted war criminal in the in the person of al bashir. store, is really quite unfortunate, from my perspective, that the opposition is essentially on thing out and leaving the sudan people hanging. whoa, there, mr. ezekiel that is a fairly tough indictment of what you are doing right now, you are leaving the people of sudan hanging. if you look at it, christian, we are with with drawing the cause. but bashir, as you know is an indictmented man. by all mance, he can lose this election. he will do anything he can to rig this election. all arrangements made clear he has rigged the election and wanted to win. you know, just seems to be two competing momentums here. on the one hand, president bashir wants legitimacy from this election. the other hand, you seem to be saying what we really want is the referendum and secede. i see you nodding, ambassador. i think that is the case. they are basically throwing in the towel in terms of the notion of even contesting in the north. they are essentially saying they will go and we will have a separate country and so what we really need to concentrate on is a january 2011 rev rehn rum dumb. what i sphere that bashir is not honorable, goes back on his word, the national congress party operates tactically and come january, 2011 we are going to find in fact they not going to allow that referendum to go forward and so the low-intensity conflict we see today will, in fact, escalate to a full-blown war that we saw the 22-year civil war that killed more than 2 million people, which would be a dark future for the sudanese people. what plans do you have, what agenda do you have for avoiding a full-scale civil war break out again? very important that it is conducted on time, the 9th of january. it is important. i know bashir will not, the post 2011, the issue of vote, the issue of pipeline. the things we needed to discuss. we are cooperating with the north to have a peaceful divorce, because it is reclear that sudan is not accommodative to many people. you are obviously a bush administration official. what do you thinkaccommodative . you are obviously a bush administration official. what do you thinkthat sudan is to many people. you are obviously a bush administration official. what do you thinkaccommodative . you are obviously a bush administration official. what do you think of the successful failure of the obama administration poll circumstance the increasing offer of carrots as well as stakes to the bashir government? has it produced anything? well, no i think the big best challenge for the obama administration is they are divided. and you see very mixed signals coming out from the special envoy to the secretary, get them on one page, the president himself has to exercise leadership. the president has to come out and say what he thinks should happen in sound. he needs to pick up the phone and talk to african leader so he can get them on board with the position the united states is looking for and also exercise diplomacy in places like china. probably the united states, china and the african union will be the critical players in the future of sudan beside the sudanese people in government itself. last word to you. you have just heard ambassador frazer question the leadership opposition, the sudanese people out to dry because you don t want to contest those elections. what do you see now for the next foreseeable future between the election and referendum? let me add one thing before i answer that it is very important for us to avoid the war, disagreement was an agreement witnessed by the international community, more than 17 countries, u.n. body witnessing this, very important for us to have soft landing in 2011 by having the international community engaged in this to make sure that we have peaceful divorce. the next someone about opposition. i think is important for opposition to come together and unite themselves to see a united front. but to be honest with you in 2011 the words should be are ready to have, student is going to interpreter: great. sudan is going to disintegrate? yes. that is your final word? i m sure. thank you so much for joining us. and next in pour postscript, we remember a key event in the breakup of another country, poland, at the beginning of world war ii. 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