So, to our next panel, a road paved with good intentions, examining the role of the CPA from the drafter's perspective. We've had a great kind of big picture from General Simbeuo. I think we're going to move now to a number of people that worked intensively with General Simbeuo during that period, get into some of the granularity of what went into this process. As a general outline, there were choices made at the time of the CPA, what to include, what not to include, what had to be agreed upon, what could be left or had to be left for future agreement. So this was very much a negotiation process in that many things that I'm sure the mediators wanted settled was not ultimately settled. We're going to talk, I think we'll begin with the panel here to talk a little bit about the choices that were made, the things that were kind of postponed, and perhaps then the consequences that have grown out of the decisions that were made in that process. We're going to begin with Nicholas Hayson. You all have extensive biographies along with your agenda. He is director for political affairs in the executive office of Ban Ki-moon. As you'll see from his bioconstitutional work in South Africa, in Iraq, but in a whole slew of countries, conflicted countries across the world, we're delighted to have Nicholas Hayson with us here today. We have Susan Page, who is currently deputy assistant secretary for African Affairs at the U.S. State Department. She's covering Central and Southern Africa. She's a Harvard-trained lawyer with a long history of experience in Sub-Saharan Africa. She was, again, a resource person within the IGAD mediating team. And since then was with the National Democratic Institute on working on East Africa, I think East and Southern Africa, again. Again, you have the bios, a long history working on, again, very difficult issues. And then we have Julian Hardinger, who is an expert in mediation and facilitation in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, expert pool. He was senior research fellow at the Institute of Federalism. He has worked in his capacity, again, a whole range of difficult, seemingly intractable processes in Somalia, done work on the LRA, on Sudan, and the list goes on. We're going to turn, so with that kind of, that wasn't a very great introduction, but why don't we turn to our panelists? I will begin with you, Nicholas, and move through the panel and open up for questions. We'll try to end at 11.15 so that the second panel has kind of equivalent time. Thank you, Jennifer. I thought I would start by just reflecting on the CPA, the nature of the CPA, and what we as a mediation team did or tried to do. The way I think of mediation teams is that they find parties who are hostages to their own imagination, their own experience, their own relationships. And what we try and do as mediators is to broaden that imagination, to give them the tools to rethink and perhaps talk to each other in different ways with new things. So in that task, and that is really as much as we can do, is to broaden their imagination. The agreement remains that of the parties, and it's quite important to bear in mind that the parties, the form of their agreement is represented in the black and white of the text. I say that because since the CPA was signed, obviously a lot of people have approached us, and questioned us on its shortcomings, principally in three areas. Either in regard to the process, secondly in regard to the ambiguities in the text itself, or thirdly in regard to gaps, what is not in the agreement. And I just want to touch on those three, considering Julian and Susan will pick up some of those issues. On the process, perhaps the most enduring critique is the narrow base of the agreement itself. In other words, it was between two belligerents, and it dealt with matters which necessarily involved a wide range of actors and players in Sudan who were not in the process. And I think there are good reasons for expressing that anxiety, because good agreements have all the spoilers or potential spoilers in from the start, and they sign off on the agreement. And it needs to be said, or but it needs to be said, typically ceasefire agreements start off with the belligerents, and the belligerents only. You don't want other players at the table. And that is really how this agreement started off. And as it expanded to deal with more general and constitutional questions in Sudan, it behoved us as the mediation to point out to the parties that it was dealing with matters which required other players at the table. Even if only the other militia groups in the south or the opposition in the north. And it really was very decidedly, despite the repetitively raising the issue, the decision of the parties that this agreement could only be effectively reached if they were the two players and that they would stand responsible for bringing the other parties in. So that was a choice of the parties themselves. In regard, let me just mention one other thing, the other aspect of inclusivity which we raised repetitively was the absence of women at the negotiating table. And that also was the choice of the parties to make it a largely and almost always an all male event. The second issue is ambiguities. And perhaps just to explain why these texts typically have ambiguities. We like to think them as creative ambiguities, but they can be also disastrous ambiguities. That is because the enormous pressure to find agreement and to find agreement on some of the core issues which divide the parties. And frequently that issue is not right for resolution there and then. And the parties know that they cannot definitively and in detail resolve it. But they have to keep the agreement going. They have to stop a breakdown in the talks and peace talks typically are like riding a bicycle.  And so generally with ambiguities what you do is you find a formula that both parties can live with and they sign on to it knowing that the other party has a different idea of what is meant by that phrase. But with some resolve we usually hope that in the course of time and the implementation of the agreement, the collaboration that necessarily must exist between the parties they will find a way to work out that problem. I think one of those examples would be the issue of the description in the two disputed northern areas that the government will undertake a popular consultation. We don't know what a popular consultation is and I know that people have approached me to say what did you mean by popular consultation? What we can tell you is the parties agreed that it wouldn't be a referendum or that they wouldn't put the word referendum in although it didn't preclude a referendum in southern Blue Nile and in southern Côte d'Fan in Blue Nile state in southern Côte d'Fan. And so that is really what we hope for as mediators when we have these ambiguous provisions and it needs to be said we can't legislate political will. We can ask in situations where the process is not inclusive that they inscribe in the agreement even when they have decided to keep other parties out. They inscribe in the agreement processes which will bring other parties in later on in the implementation of the accord. And that was really the best we could do in regard to the inclusivity. In regard to ambiguities it's our duty to advise the parties. You've got different views on this and it's going to play out badly. Or to provide or and to provide mechanisms in the agreement to allow the parties in the course of implementing the agreement to deal with the ambiguities and gaps. Finally just on the question of gaps Julian and Susan will talk about the very important part of every agreement which is the implementation. Generally how reluctant parties are at the end of the deal to start to deal with the messy details of who's going to do what and where and with what money. But the one issue which is of particularly importance is the question of the morning after the referendum. It is perhaps the most volatile moment that we will find in Sudanese history if I can be speculative. And the truth is and we pointed this out to the parties a referendum in many senses is an opinion poll. It is not a legal act of secession. Referendums if the self decides to secede require a number of events consequent upon that decision. They require to resolve questions like assets, national debts, share of it, the sharing of the oil and all the other arrangements under which they are in their futures are kind of deeply entwined at the moment. The truth is that the parties were unwilling at that point to negotiate the post referendum consequences. Perhaps understandably because the mere fact that they had agreed to this process relatively unique in Africa which is a consensual division as it were consensual default just in response to a previous question. I think African leaders set their face against unilateral declarations of independence but where it's a consensual process there's no and shouldn't be any opposition. And the CPA essentially delivers a consensual process in theory. So it's just to really emphasize that in regard to the referendum there are a number of issues which have to be organized. Last week in the New York mini-summit the parties were quite clear in agreeing to the referendum to hold it timeously and peacefully to abide by its results, give effect to its decision and to plan for the consequences publicly. Privately quite frankly the old bitterness and low levels of trust emerged in the discussions and I think that's just the last point I'd make about the CPA. No agreement can legislate political will, can prescribe a spirit of partnership. At best what we can hope for is that the mechanics of implementing the agreement seize the parties, actively assume a kind of co-management and a joint responsibility and some ownership and collaborative spirit which comes out of that co-ownership. But if they don't exhibit that then really it's not to the agreement that one can go to find it. Thank you Nicholas. Susan. Thank you very much. It's always difficult to go after General Simbeiwo and Fink as we call him and know him lovingly. But I'll try to do my best. I think the issues were really quite well framed both by Steve Morrison in the introduction by the ambassador, Swiss ambassador and Jennifer and then given the overall view from General Simbeiwo. But I think what I'll try to do is be a little bit more specific on the areas that Fink mentioned. In terms of inclusivity, we actually had lots of debates about the word inclusivity which does not really appear in the dictionary. See I'm even saying the Bible. But one of the ways that we tried to deal with it was to help the parties to get beyond the sole responsibility of the parties by both the SPLM and the NCP in two ways, well in several ways. But one was that both sides claimed that they represented their constituents, the rest of the population. So in the case of the NCP, the rest of the north and in the case of the SPLM, the rest of the south or the entire south. One of the things that came out of the peace agreement was to try to broaden that support but also to figure out what level of support they really had from the population. So one thing that General Simbeiwo did was to organize a trip throughout the country, not just the south but also to the north and try to find out what people were saying. Of course you're always going to get some rallies that are going to be exclusively driven by one side or the other to get as many of their supporters there. But it was to try to get a sense of what other people were thinking that there was in fact some popular support for the positions that were being taken or argued for. Another area was to try to encourage civil society. And this has been another one of the complaints in terms of inclusivity, not just the lack of women participation at the negotiating table, which we didn't really have any control over, but also the fact that civil society was not engaged in any sort of role at the table. And so what we tried to do was to make sure that we constantly briefed civil society, that we had regular meetings with civil society, so that they were at least heard and that their views were in some sense incorporated, even if it was just through us listening and being able to try to incorporate some of those conclusions into the actual peace agreement. The last thing I would mention on the inclusivity bit is, when it got down to the final terms of some of the commissions that were established, and this actually goes to a bit of the ambiguity point, which I'll speak about in a second, was to encourage the parties to have this National Constitutional Review Commission. And to the party's credit, that was actually a very inclusive body, and that was meant to get civil society opposition from both the North and the South, labor leaders and others to help with the drafting of those new laws that had to come into being. So I think that was one of the successful portions of in fact trying to overcome that burden, and the parties took it upon themselves to broaden that network that we had established as a 60-member committee and initially they decided to actually make it up to 180 people. So you can imagine that an unwieldy group is hard to manage, but at the same time they wanted to encourage a broader group at least for the constitution, the new constitution to be drafted. So I think that was a positive step. In terms of ambiguity, I would mention a couple of things. One of them is that what we tried to do was to actually study the Addis Ababa Agreement and look at where there were shortcomings and to try to overcome some of those. Of course, all agreements have their own context and you can't overcome everything, but one of the areas that we tried to make a difference in was by encouraging the parties to come up with this notion of the presidency. And this has been both a success and in some ways a failure because while we tried to encourage the collegial presidency and it's actually very specifically listed, it says there shall be established the institution of the presidency consisting of the president and two vice presidents. What we did was to spell out the specific responsibilities and functions of the two vice presidents and we said there should be a partnership and collegial decision-making process within the institution of the presidency in order to safeguard the peace agreement. Now, while we said this and the parties, this is what the parties agreed to, as Fink said, we have to remember this is the agreement that the parties created. We helped them with language, with suggestions, but ultimately this is what they decided upon. Now, where I think there have been some real misgivings in terms of the implementation has been that a lot of the ambiguity rested with decisions couldn't be made, we bump it up, the parties agreed, they would bump it up to the presidency because this was to be the collegial entity that would resolve all of the problems. And so that has been an area where I think the ambiguity has not often been resolved at the presidential level and one of those examples of course is Abye, where the parties had two very different views of the Abye boundary commission report and yet the presidency really couldn't make that decision and so ultimately it had to be solved through another political mechanism which was the arbitration and the arbitration court. And then lastly I wanted to talk a little bit about reconciliation. One of the things that we had put together, I mean, if you actually look at the Michakos protocol, the Michakos protocol is a broad framework for what we hope to include into the ultimate, what became ultimately the CPA, but it's an outline of the things that should be incorporated a final ceasefire, some sort of power sharing arrangement, some sort of resource sharing, separation of the militaries, etc. And one of the things that came out of that was we tried to encourage the parties to have some sort of a truth and reconciliation commission of sorts, you can call it whatever you like, but some sort of truth telling that would get to reconciliation of really these very hardened positions and animosity between two groups that had been fighting for a long time. And ultimately the best that the parties could do was to come up with a process and so as Fink said, a lot of the agreement is helping them find a way to get to a process that can ultimately resolve some of these issues. Unfortunately, it's one of the areas that the parties really didn't do very much with, even though it's very clearly in agreement that a process of reconciliation would be instituted by the parties, the details of which would be worked out, and it just never really got worked out. So that I think is quite a pity. And I think the only other thing I would like to add is we've talked a lot about the referenda, the referendum for southern Sudan, for the people of southern Sudan and the referendum in Abye. And one of the areas that is frequently not mentioned is the fact that the day after the vote takes place, since they're both supposed to occur on the same day, there's still six more months left in the CPA period. And that leads right into, I think, what Julian's going to talk about in terms of the implementation modalities and that period of arranging what kind of post-referenda period they will have, on what kind of basis will the CPA be the basis, will they create some new model, whether it's unity or secession, will there be some of the clauses of the CPA, will they continue in the north, will they continue in the south. You do have two constitutions and each state has its own constitution as well. They're interim until the referenda occur, but that hasn't been discussed much, although we talk a lot about the other modalities that have to be worked out. So I think I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Good morning. I must say it's a pleasure to be here five years and a half later and thinking about what we did then. And it's especially a pleasure to see General Sunbeil think and Susan again. Our paths have crossed off and on. It's the first time that we're sitting down and probably looking back at the CPA and thinking about what we did do then and how we did do it. I must also admit that we discussed what we were going to talk about last night and I went home and went to bed and woke up all of a sudden at about four in the morning and my goodness all of it came back like a flash, all of a sudden. Remember the best moments, remember the worst moments and to tell the truth. Still wondering what we did do right, what we did do wrong and to what extent we could have done better. And it's probably a weight that a mediator carries to the end of his days is this notion of we did something, we thought it was the best then, is it still the best five years later on? Well, we can question it. And to a certain extent I think we have to stick with the idea that we did at that moment what we thought was correct, the best and at the same time with the parties or to a certain extent for the parties hoping that it would help them. What I'm basically going to mention in a few minutes and I do have a lot to say I must admit is probably talk about the implementation because it is the element right now that influences the next steps. We got the peace agreement, it was signed, to tell the truth we had the peace agreement already back on the 26th of May 2004 and on purpose we prolongated the process for a while. What we did on purpose to a certain extent was say we don't want to repeat the mistakes that had been done in Addis with the Addis Agreement what we want to do is we want to consolidate that implementation. And we took another six months negotiating the implementation. A lot of people were surprised, they were saying but my goodness you've got the protocols, what's the use in negotiating this implementation? Let's get the protocol signed and then we'll see what we do next. And we were conscious that the parties were still marked or if you prefer traumatized by the Addis experience and the fact that there had been no implementation in that agreement they were convinced that if there wasn't an implementation in this one the potential risk was that it all end up like the Addis Agreement. So we took more time, we negotiated those implementation scales and if you look at the agreement out of the 241 pages of the agreement a good 30% are implementation scales and they weren't easy to negotiate. They weren't easy to negotiate for the very simple reason that the parties had chosen a technique of negotiation what is to negotiate protocols and once they had negotiated a protocol for example a well-sharing protocol they sealed it with their signatures and they were not keen on reopening it. So of course what we had by the end of the negotiations were a series of protocols that had been negotiated in sequence there had not been much trading off in between the protocols not to say very little and once we had to go look at the implementation we found ourselves pinned down with the details. What were the details exactly? How had they been understood by each party? To what extent did they understand the same thing? To what extent could they agree on what they had understood? And to what extent could we keep them focused and trying to figure out how to do the implementation without necessarily starting to unravel everything? And it was a hard time. It was a hard time also because techniques change. When you negotiate implementation you don't negotiate it the same way you negotiate the rest of the agreement. And you've got to bring more people on board you've got to work on it differently you've got to get the parties to stay focused on what is the implementation and at the same time not find yourself caught in a game with this tendency of saying let the other side implement and then we'll see what we implement and always towards a certain extent saying we're not responsible for what's being done and let someone else be held responsible. But I think the negotiations on the implementation did bring about one positive aspect and this was an aspect in which the parties really took possession of the document. They probably possessed it about 70, 75 or 80 percent but after the implementation it was their document and to a certain extent after having looked through it worked on it and draw the implementation models they had the feeling that they possessed it and it did belong to them and they were conscious that there was still a lot of work to be done. Within the implementation the difficult element were the protocols. We had content beyond what you can imagine. In peace processes what happens quite often is when you discuss and you negotiate you can still dream, you can imagine things but then when it comes to looking at the implementation you've got to concretely say what is going to be done, what can be done and how can it be done. And it's a sense of reality that's brought back on board and to a certain moment or certain occasions for the parties it's a shock it's a way of saying well now we have to concretely look at what we're going to do and how we're going to do it and I think the implementation in that sense probably was a shock for the parties but above all what we had difficulties in handling when we look back retrospectively was the mass of information just the quantity of information we had the richness of the protocols and to a certain extent how do you sequence them in such a way that there's some form of logic and what we were obliged to do was to establish an implementation matrix an implementation matrix that had to look at each protocol individually what had to be done in the Machacos protocol the first one signed in July 2002 what had to be done within the security arrangements which was not a complete protocol that had been signed in September 2003 what had to be done in between with, sorry or within the weather, the wealth sharing excuse me, protocol that was signed in January 2004 and finally the three conflict areas Abiyay, Korofan and the Southern Blue Nile not to mention the power sharing protocol that was signed in May 2004 all of this had to be combed through looked into, to a certain extent analyzed and shared out what we did find ourselves with was, as Fink mentioned, a lot of creative ambiguity we found ourselves also confronted with to a certain extent parties read their agreement differently and to a certain extent if we hadn't combed through this document we probably would have had more problems with the implementation later on than we did already then when we were trying to establish the matrix I also think the problem we came about was the problem that we had a lot of principles there were a lot of principles in the documents but not always a clear way in which they had to be applied and what they should be applied for one of the most difficult elements was when we were working on security issues was the joint integrated units these units that are combined forces made up of the Sudan armed forces and the SPLA that were supposed to coordinate their activities and at the same time be responsible for certain sectors of security in certain defined areas these joint integrated units due to the difference of perception have never worked they've been put together to tell the truth they sit in camps one next to the other but they totally ignore each other they sit back to back and just don't fulfill their mission as they should be fulfilling if I mention this it's to say to what point what we had to really do at a certain moment within this peace process and it remains for me one of the hardest aspects was we had to establish what I call a vision of society we were obliged within Sudan not only to say things have to change we can aspire to some federal model or some form of a democracy but we also had to say things have to change fundamentally and what we have to do is we have to establish a vision of Sudan where we're looking six years and a half down the road and we're saying we're going to try for unity and if we can't manage for unity we will have to accept that there might be separation a separation that will take place for a referendum and this was the hardest task of all without doubt now these are just running from one element to the other going along quite quickly to tell the truth but I would like to insist on one last aspect before I give back the floor and that is the aspect of saying we mustn't forget the CPA had a precise mission CPA's mission was to say it's to stop the war CPA's mission was to say we know what we will do the next six years and a half and then it's for the Sudanese to decide what they think will be best this option today is heading towards its final stage we've had six months of an interim period at the beginning what was to prepare for the six years of transition on the 9th of January we'll be entering the last phase which is another six months before the CPA should end and for the moment it's not clear what will happen the Sudanese have put out a law a law what they talk on the transition draft of southern Sudan and it's a referendum bill that they've established in 2009 in which they're very precise in saying they have to negotiate a series of key concepts to tell the truth they're 11 the first one being nationality the second one being currency the third one being public service the fourth one position which is under the liquidated combined units that are the famous joint integrated units I mentioned the national security and intelligence the international conventions and agreements the liabilities, the oil fields its production and transport contracts and environment in the oil fields water and finally ownership these topics and principle will have to be negotiated before the referendum takes place we're talking about 92 days away and already some people are saying well we'll have to push it back later on and negotiate it once the referendum has taken place these key elements if we look at them with the key elements that already figured within the peace agreement the CBA and the only thing we find ourselves is at a certain moment these issues coming back in the front and having to be looked at in different ways institutionally speaking Sudan is supposed to be is supposed to be heading and building up a federal model if it considered itself to have a federal model already back in 1920 or I'd say from 1989 on the truth is it's not a complete federal model and it's far from being an extensive better model the issue that will come about constitutionally speaking is will they look for a federal model or will they look for something else and to tell the truth we really don't know what to expect I think sincerely and this is just a personal point of view that within the CBA we did what we could do we mustn't forget as Fink said himself it's not the drafters who own the document the document doesn't belong to the drafters at best we can bring along some expertise some help and try to caress the parties in such a way that they can work on their issues and find what they think are their agreements our Sudanese friends found an agreement that has brought them up to where they are now and with luck I hope that will bring them further on but to think that this is the last step would be a mistake and to think that this is the last step with the solution would also be a mistake when I was working in Northern Ireland at a very initial stage in the talks about the talks we were sent there to stop the violence already then and one of the problems that came about was the problem of saying will these people be able to agree amongst themselves or not agree amongst themselves and we had gotten to a solution where we said there was a violence and we probably had to wait a generation that generation mark still is there for me and quite often I think peace processes bring about answers they continue to have to be worked on they bring more answers and to a certain extent you need to give time to time before you can say if it's a success or not a success so that's where we probably stand today I've talked my nine minutes so I'll stop there and I probably just went in with a joke I will kind of give a bit of a pragmatic insight about all of this poor Susan I just heard it more than once so I'm sorry about it my son, he's a young man now he's quite a big boy but when he was very small at school they asked him what his parents used to do or did and he said my mother, well she's a school teacher he explained where she taught and what she taught and as for my father well he's got a strange job he goes to these far away countries where people fight but you know no one listens to him so probably you shouldn't listen to me either thank you thanks very much let's open up for questions I had a question perhaps about kind of the importance of personalities within the talks we've talked about General Simbao's role as mediator John Garang obviously was a key power within that and then on the cartoon side died shortly after the CPA was signed and on the cartoon side the lead negotiator perhaps didn't kind of hold the same position following in the interim period and I just wonder we take a few at a time but I wonder if you might reflect on the role of key personalities and divisions within cartoon and within the SPLM perhaps following the CPA and during the negotiation of the CPA um let's open though for some questions we have one there my class is back on hello and thank you my name is Vicky kind of medias I'm with PILPG um so you all discuss both the idealistic and the pragmatic and my question is if the north does not or refuses to recognize the outcome of the referendum how will the international community respond will there be more mediation or will they attempt to enforce the results thank you okay Richard Soloya with the National Foreign Trade Council perhaps this is addressed to Secretary Page could you comment on the role of the U.S. sanctions as we approach this referendum uh yes my name is Marcus Sweeno I'm with the Department of State and until quite recently Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Cartoon um my question really is on the role of the United Nations um both in terms of what they have done up to date on this uh in mitigation between the north and the south but also to to the panel uh on what role they see during the referendum um I was in Cartoon during the April elections despite criticism I think the U.N. really had an admirable role in providing support for those elections and then finally in the post referendum period what what is reasonable to expect from Unmiss in terms of peacekeeping and other functions thank you um finally the D.C.M. and keeping mobile the second panel is also going to be looking a little bit forward so there's going to be some overlap between yes sir I would like first to my name for from embassy of Sudan uh this is a time to to say thank you and CSIS and uh journalism both today with us with one of the great people in the CPA history and uh the group of drafters and mediator here with us today uh in this moment I would like to ask what the role should be by the international community in this turning point we are heading to the uh referendum and many pressure were deployed on our country especially when mentioning the sanctions and the environment uh the countries moving towards this referendum where there is sanctions there's pressures and the country needs support in both now in the political side and on the development both in the south and the north and how the international community would would give the support in the development in the process and to pave the way for this critical moment in the history and I would like again to give our tribute to for this uh continuous support and the spirit to give the people of Sudan again a new moment for the the coming the coming critical time for the referendum and his mediation is still going on with his spirit thank you thank you Fatah let's uh go turn to the panel before we are I'm just going to answer two questions the question about I think is an important the question about John Garang is important and also the some might say many commentators pointed out that Taha's prestige diminished uh and power in Khartim for a while in an event and I think that alludes to the danger of writing the constitution or writing a sorry a peace agreement with personalities in mind um and I think Susan was correct in saying quite a few things in the constitution outstanding uh issues or potentially uh uh issues which could derail the process of the presidential council very specifically with the view that John Garang and Taha would be the ones dealing with it and so that's just a really a warning let me just deal secondly with the UN question you know when we started drafting the agreement and it's you can see it in the Machakos protocol it was considered that the evaluation of the agreement was a very important role in chipping the parties up to implement the agreement but by the time we signed off on the agreement both parties had lost interest uh in an institution outside their control or not owned by them uh um looking to the proper implementation of the agreement and as a result it became rather marginal um and I think for some time really went through the motions of performing its role as agreed off to the CPA CPA is not very full on what the UN's role should be but I have no doubt that they've thrown their weight fully into organizing the referendum they are really essentially involved in two processes the one which is to help the Sudanese physically administer the elections to get ballot boxes and ballots out secondly to provide security and there were certain aspects of the last elections and what transpired there in the south particularly which are worrying and which is certainly an indication uh that we would have to ensure that UNMAS will have to ensure as far as it can to provide the necessary security and stability in the region thirdly the secretary general has just appointed a high level panel headed by president Mkhapa it's a three person panel and its intention is to be quite separate from the administration of the elections but to be a panel which can perform two functions both which both parties recognized and in fact requested the UN to establish a mechanism to perform and that was firstly to chivvy the parties to behave properly during the election recognizing that they have limited purchase on each other uh if the north tells the south want to do it's not necessarily the south will jump and and vice versa so to have a high level panel which can talk directly to the parties and secondly to ensure that the election as far as possible through their monitoring role is free of intimidation and can be certified as such and I know the northerners in particular have a concern that if there is rampant intimidation in the south uh northerners will challenge the results and may well could well feel that they can't respect the result so everybody has an interest in intimidation free and a violence free election both in the north and in the south if only for the purposes of that certification okay um let me just let me first answer the question about how will the international community respond based on the outcome um I think that this is where it's really important to remember that this is actually a Sudanese agreement that was brokered supported by whatever you want to call it by EGAD um which had support from the rest of the international community um as General Sunbe will mention there are a number of uh of countries and institutions that signed up as witnesses um Julie and I have our copies of the CPA here with us um you can see the difference Julian's looks very pristine and mine is all battered um I don't know what that says but but um there were a number of countries um obviously the Sudanese and then uh Kenya Uganda Egypt Italy, Netherlands Norway UK US European Union Norway twice in a different way in Italy twice as the co-chairs of the international EGAD partners forum secretary general of the Arab League and the UN so these are all the countries that signed up as witnesses truth be told we actually had to send the language out and make sure that people could the countries could sign up to it um as witnesses and not as guarantors because they didn't want to have to enforce something that perhaps they weren't ready to take on that said um I think that as has been spoken about already the fact that the UN held this high level meeting last month in New York on the margins of the UN at the presidential level I mean President Obama made a very directed speech where he said what at least how our administration feels that it's absolutely essential that the referendum are held on time and that they respect the will of the Sudanese voters as Julian read out they still haven't determined citizenship issues who's going to vote in either of the referendum so these are things that are still really challenging we've already discussed some of the African Union countries but the whole idea was really to get the international community behind something that they already have signed up to help the parties get to and um while it may be a tricky subject and a touchy subject to to talk about a possible civil divorce or whatever we want to call it this was made specifically in the CPA with the focus being on unity and the emphasis being on unity but if that can't work they have this other alternative so I think the international community as General Sunbe will mention is kind of waking up a little bit belatedly but nonetheless I think that they will support at least following through with helping the Sudanese get through to the end of the CPA obligations before I comment on sanctions because I think it's probably actually better for the second panel which will have congress as well as congressional representatives as well as Tim Shortley the deputy special envoy to General Gratian but let me just mention I think also in terms of the personalities I think it was really quite critical and although I do believe it's problematic to make things base too much on personalities I also don't think we would be where we are if we had not had the courageous leadership of both Vice President Taha and John Goreng and I don't think either of those can be underestimated. What Kenya did was to take an extreme risk in inviting Vice President Taha and Dr. John Goreng to Naivasha we had a secret location that even we didn't know about and John Goreng had stood up Vice President Taha before so there was no guarantee that he was actually going to show up and Vice President Taha waited for several days before we finally did manage to convince I mean we all collectively four days before before Dr. John Goreng showed up in Naivasha but they had an amazing relationship they figured out how they could work out their own issues and their own deals to take into account look my constituency needs this my constituency needs this how can we work that out so that I give you something as General always said something you can live with not your maximum position but can you live with this and I don't think that we would be in this position if we hadn't had that unbelievable dedication and once the two of them came together really we took much more back seat position and the parties themselves really drove the process from that point forward two quick things though one I would say in terms of un-miss just to add on to what Fink has said there are two additional bits un-miss operates under the Security Council mandate under the Security Council resolution which established the peacekeeping mission so it has all these different functions that are included in the mandate and then maybe Fink you want to add a little bit about former President Tabo and Becky who is also leading up sort of this implementation panel which is helping the parties and then just on sanctions this is an issue we can have the debate about whether sanctions are effective anywhere and I think that my government has put in place and they have been in place for some time we know that it troubles the Sudanese and others but I don't think that that's going to change anytime soon but I'll let the Special Envoy's office and the second panel address that thanks Julian I'll probably come back to the issue of personalities when you're being trained as a mediator you're always told you've got to make abstraction or you've got to ignore the personalities and you must never build your agreement or any form of negotiation around personalities but the truth is you've got no choice you might want to build up a process in which you'll see personality shouldn't be that important or eventually if personality should disappear they can easily be replaced by someone else but the truth is that you can look at any process that has taken place in the last 20 years and the figures and personalities come about now some personalities change during the process some personalities might disappear during the process but the truth is you find yourself always confronted with the issue of personalities and how you're going to deal with it now you can have personalities who can be excellent leaders or guerrilla leaders if you prefer or fighters or run organizations when it comes to mediation they're not that great you can also have other commanders that are excellent fighters and to a certain extent might be good mediators too and know how to negotiate but it doesn't mean they're excellent at the implementation at the end of the day and so what you find yourself quite often with is personalities at certain moments according to the phases you're going through they have their importance but it's rare that a personality can say from 8 to Z has been the common person that has carried things forward so take a quick round of us a quick second round we'll take maybe 2 or 3 maximum we'll keep them short yes the gentleman here my name is Amad I'm from Sudan Embassy my question for Susan Bech how can you describe the role of the United States in positively or negatively in supporting the SPLA military supporting the SPLA and the South and training and while imposing sanctions against the North Sudan okay and Mike Phelan from the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee good morning Mike Phelan Senate Foreign Relations Committee my question goes to the three of you as experienced negotiators if you could inform us from your experience to what degree this brinksmanship is the final necessary element to move to conclusive decisions by the parties in this case we're looking at 100 days and there are others counting it down day by day and yet we still as you just mentioned have not concluded some of the essential decisions on the way to the referendum the parties in follow-up to that have the parties already decided what their path is going to be regardless okay we'll come back to you Abdul Kerim Usman from the Royal Military College of Canada giving the volatile situations that everybody describing how much control does Juba has over SPLA forces and what their view of Khartoum ability to control their own giving what we hear about the disasters that would happen after the referendum my question might be addressed to the general thanks let me just deal with the one question which is the question of the brinksmanship and what are we going to do with the issues which haven't been resolved yet I think it's absolutely inevitable that these issues are not going to be properly resolved by the time of the referendum but the South has made it clear that they have insisted and are insisting that the elections be held on time and they have and have stated a deep fear that if they allow any shift in the date it will be the beginning of a process of opening up the CPA and so from their perspective they'd rather say let's have the referendum and then continue with the resolving the rest of the issues which have to be decided sorry I was asked a question about Unmus the referendum period I'd like to say just two things firstly I think it's inevitable that the United Nations are not just Unmus I think the entire system including the development arms are going to necessarily be involved in the South and I say that regardless of the way in which the South votes I think the South really does need capacity building and needs all the assistance but having said that I think the Northerners have expressed the view that they also need some assistance and that there shouldn't just be a process of concentrating on the South and just abandoning the North there are real issues just notice that today we haven't mentioned the D word at all we've conducted this entire conversation without referring to Darfur that might be one of the issues when I talk spoke about gaps that were deliberately left out of the agreement the mention of the D word was certainly one of those okay just to follow up a little bit on Fink's mention of Darfur one thing in terms of maybe partly brinksmanship but I would just say that we were specifically asked not to deal with Darfur in the CPA which obviously makes it not a comprehensive peace agreement and as has been mentioned in numerous think tank pieces peace P E A C E in pieces P I E C E S so I think this is just a reality we have the eastern Sudan peace agreement we have Darfur what one thinks about the Darfur peace agreement we have the CPA so we are constrained by what we're allowed to do as mediators or supporters of a process I agree also with Fink the end of the day in terms of brinksmanship I mean there were a number of times during the CPA negotiations it's already been said that the timing was right but it was right for resolution and I think for a number of reasons that were really mentioned in Steve Morrison's over sort of setting the stage and then Jennifer's introduction where you had really a combination of events all occurring around the same time nonetheless there were still moments when clashes flared up even though we had a cessation of hostilities or where events took place and our colleagues here all remember suitcases just kind of going down the hallway and we were suddenly informed that one side or the other side was leaving so brinksmanship was I think always a part of the negotiations and I think that now that the issues are so serious and so real they're going to be there again in terms of the US government's support of the SPLA in terms of military training while at the same time having sanctions on the north I think we have to be realistic about the times that we're living in in the United States there have been a number of conferences talking about Sudan and what can be done it's vital I think that we have had the role of the international NGOs and what not keep people informed and on their toes but at the same time it has also constrained I think the space and as everyone knows it's been very difficult to figure out where the US should be coming down on where the general already mentioned the ICC indictment we end up spending a lot of our time on should Bashir have been invited to Kenya should he have been invited to Chad should he have been received we're not signatories to the Rome Statute I mean it's all of this is a little schizophrenic but at the same time we've had a long role of engagement with the south and sanctions don't apply in them so I'm not trying to make an excuse but I think we have to deal with the reality that's in front of us and I think a lot of people took a tremendous hit if you would say from the US administration both past and present for wanting to actually deal with the government in the north and others saying we should never deal with this government because they've been accused of genocide so it has been a tough situation to navigate and I think that has put successive special envoys in a very difficult position as well. I don't think this is the last word Jeff before I answer your question whether the government of southern Sudan is in charge of the SPLA or whether the north is in charge of SAF I want to say this that although these are being referred to as drafters they just are not really drafters they are mediators in their own right part of they represented and I think they did more than just draft I'm trying to tell you that they were able to engage the parties they negotiated with the parties as mediators and therefore I think you should not go with the notion that these people are just people who drafted things with the parties they had to get positions from the parties and mold them and help them and they are not the only ones Charles Snyder here from the Troika side where we are doing their own mediation too in one way or another and quite a number the Italians of course they got people themselves so let's make no mistakes we provided the leadership and this was we even met ourselves as secretariat there wasn't anything like that but we did make ourselves a secretariat that ran the process so I want these people are more than just drafters they were more mediators too as far as the issue of remember I don't live in Sudan I live in Kenya so if I tell you anything about control or no control it's just from my perspective from perception it's the way I see it yes I think both sides are in control of their armies but from what we've seen in the past in Africa no political power or political system is totally in control of an army so the army can run amok and there is nothing there is no way you can stop it there is nothing the people in Juba can do SAF can run amok and there is nothing people in the north can do about it it's just that the army has to be loyal to the authorities but there is no way you can control them you can tell them do this yes they will do it but what happens if you get people who believe and I think on both sides there are elements that could easily be loose cannons thank you on that ominous note let's bring this panel to a close thank you very much I think resource persons really doesn't do it when you talk about the folks here at this panel thanks for your insights we're going to move quickly to the next panel so please remain in your seats and we'll move over thanks again


Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode of Weird Darkness, it's another episode of 100% stories from Weirdo family members like you. If you have a true, scary, bizarre or dark story to tell about something that happened to you or someone you know, you can send it to me by visiting the Tell Your Story page at WeirdDarkness.com.  The Demons of Eleven E. Hunters Crescent by Graham Sillers I was born in November 1986 in Perth, Scotland. I spent my first four years living with my mum and dad in a top floor flat of a block of six. The housing estate we lived in was called Fairfield and was just a little run down and rough around the edges, but it was home. From the time I was born, my maternal grandmother, who had the gift, always insisted that I also had it. All throughout my life I've had visions of things that have passed and things that are still to happen. This gift has gotten stronger since my grandmother passed away a couple of years ago. This story, however, centers on my first four years living in Eleven E. Hunters Crescent. This flat was haunted to say the very least. My first memory, and it's a vivid one, is seeing a demonic, monk-like face staring at me through the wooden bars of my cot. I couldn't have been older than a year and a half, but the memory has always stuck with me and has left me with a slight fear of the dark. So many scary things happened in this flat over such a short period of time. One day my auntie Angie, not my auntie by blood, but my mom's best friend and my godmother, was walking along the street and she looked up at the living room window, which looked on to Crescent. The window was open and my mom looking out. They caught sight of each other and my mom called down to ask Angie up for a coffee in a chat. The door entry on the block was controlled by a buzzer system. Each flat had its own button and a corresponding handset which was situated just inside the front door of each flat. My auntie Angie pressed the button for Eleven E and my mom's voice came over the intercom. Up you come, doll. The kettle's on. The door opened and Angie climbed the stairs to the top of the building. She expected my mom to be waiting at the top with the door open, but she was nowhere in sight and the door was locked. She started to knock and call my mom's name. Jean, it's Angie. Let me in, doll. Just at that moment, Angie heard my mom's voice from the bottom of the stairs. Angie, is that you, Petal? Come and give me a hand with Graham's pram and all these shopping bags. I'm shattered, hand. My auntie Angie ran down the stairs in complete shock. My mom had been out all morning shopping with me beside her in the pram. There was nobody else in the house as my dad was out at work. Who then had called down to the street offering Angie a coffee in my mom's voice and then proceeded to let her in at the intercom? Another incident took place one night when my uncle Jammie, my mom's brother James, who was the spitting image of Patrick Swayze in his youth and was very bit, the Casanova, had just broken up with one of his many girlfriends and needed a place to stay. He was put to bed a little worse for wear in the back bedroom. He fell asleep and then my parents went back to bed too.  I was just under a month old by this point and was apparently not the most vocal of babies, so my mom really paid attention to the sounds. She soon realized that the noise sounded like whispering and giggling. She thought that Jammie invited some girl into the house and she stormed through to the back bedroom opening the door wide only to discover that Jammie was still sound asleep. The lights were off and the windows were closed. This was mid-December and the height of winter in Scotland, so it was pretty chilly outside. Anyway, what my mom saw was stick with her for the rest of her life. The thin muslin curtains were billowing as if in a breeze from an open window and my uncle Jammie, who lay on the bed of sleep and bare chested, had been badly scratched and bloody to cross his torso. My mom has never been so terrified. Every time she retells this particular tale, she visibly begins to shake.  Needless to say, my uncle never stayed overnight in that flat again if he had a lover's tiff with one of his lady friends. While there are many more tales I could share regarding this flat, I will tell only one more. My mom and auntie Angie both had pet dogs. My mom had a three-legged female mongrel called Lady. Oh, the irony. Angie had a pure-bred West Highland terrier called Snowy. While both dogs never particularly liked each other, they never fought. Measures were always taken though should the need arise to stop them getting into a fight. My mom and Angie were having girly chat and coffees, my dad had taken me out for the day to see his parents, and I would have been around two years old by this point. They had both been out earlier in the day walking the dogs, and they decided to go to some afternoon bingo, how very 1980s. They'd obviously need to leave the dogs alone in the house for a while, but didn't want them fighting when nobody was around to stop it.  Both dogs were left with water and some dog-kibble to keep them happy. Both women would only be gone a few hours, and my dad and I would be away all day, so off they went, safe in the knowledge that no harm would come to either of their dogs. When they arrived back from their girly bingo game a while later, both they tad tipsy and happy that they won some money. They each went to let their dogs out of the rooms that they'd been kept in.  She was very surprised to see Snowy, who bolted past her, ran into the living room and dove behind the sofa. My auntie Angie was equally speechless when she opened the back bedroom door and outplotted Lady, who similarly, if a little more unstable on her paws, also dove behind the sofa. Both dogs, from that point on, never had a single grumble at one another. Both my mom and Angie were at a loss as to how they could explain to each other what had gone on. Neither of them had had alcohol before going out to their bingo game, and both, to this day, are adamant that the dogs that they'd left in each room were not the dogs that they let out later in the day. The house had been empty for that few hours except for Lady and Snowy. Both bedroom doors had been firmly closed, and it was later found that my dad had forgotten his house keys and the only other set were in my mom's possession in her handbag. It's a mystery we still discuss thirty years later. So many spooky things happened at this address. The ones I've mentioned here are the most interesting to my mind. Other things that would happen included poltergeist activity. Items would be hurled across the room. Ornaments would be smashed. Every electrical item in the house would be found either switched on or entirely unplugged. Items would go missing, and when not found, would be replaced only for the lost item to turn up exactly where it had last been seen. Weird sounds, voices, laughs, blowing winds, growls and snarls would be heard from all over the flat when nobody else was around. We eventually moved out to a similarly laid out flat three streets along in the same estate. Nothing of notes ever really happened in 4C Leslie Court, but I've always heard strange voices, seeing creepy visions, been more open and perceptive to the strange and unusual side of things. My maternal grandmother did always say I'd inherited her gift of second sight. My parents too have always said that the spooky things in 11E Hunter's Crescent were few and far between before I was born and only really increased in severity after November 1986. All I can say is I'm so glad the house I now live in with my husband Duncan and our three corgis isn't haunted, and whatever resided alongside my family and I in my first four years on earth in 11E Hunter's Crescent didn't attach itself to me. I do often wonder if anything has ever happened to the family that moved in after we left. Apparently they still live there to this very day. Who Goes There by Christina Hale I have a story when I was about 14 years old, around 1999, 34 years old now. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and our house was haunted. One night I was walking down the hallway to go to my bedroom and I saw a full black shadow figure run across the wall. I remember freaking out and running while grabbing my sisters. I was babysitting at the time as my parents had went out that night. The kids were four and five. We ran up our driveway terrified, knees shaking, trying not to cry out of fear. I remember it having a large brimmed hat and dark. I got the courage to go back and try to recreate it, but I couldn't. Same night I'm still watching my two little sisters. It was getting late so we went to bed, a bunk bed, my sisters on bottom and I'm on the top bunk. We had a two bedroom home and one bathroom. My sisters are both fast asleep. I suffer from insomnia so I was up. I'm just staring at the door that was half closed and all of a sudden the whole light comes on and the bathroom light, footsteps and the sound of the medicine cabinet opening and closing. Footsteps and light goes off. I didn't see a shadow indicating that someone was physically there nor did I see anyone. While the home was laid out I'm able to see anybody going into the bathroom. My parents still aren't home so it wasn't them and my little sisters are fast asleep by now. I'm in full blown panic fear. What happened next I tried to recreate the next day but failed. Window is closed. Heater vent is on the opposite side of the room. The door that's half closed all of a sudden closes right before the latch and opens half way. This repeats four or five times before it just stopped open a little wider than it originally was. I tried physically moving the door but couldn't get the impossible speed the door was doing. We had carpet in the room so there's resistance when closing and opening the door. Needless to say I was terrified that night. I've had other experiences in the house I might share at a later time. Unexplained Sighting at RAF Base by Scott McAllum. A few weeks ago I was asked if I had ever seen a ghost. I've never actually put the experience down on paper, so to speak. I spent quite a few years with the Royal Air Force. My first posting was to RAF Buckin, situated in a small village called Bottom, around 30 miles north of Aberdeen. This would have been in the middle of July 1996. My billet was a small room we didn't have to share and was based at the back of the building. Being on the top floor I was afforded a fantastic view of the North Sea. Bleak in the winter but stunning in summer. To give you a rough idea of the layout of the room my bed was next to the window. Between the bed and the window was a table with a digital alarm clock and above it a light attached to the wall with a cord to switch it on and off. The door was on the other side along with some cupboards and a wash basin. Fast forward to December of that same year, the Sunday directly before Christmas Day on the 22nd. I'd been reading before deciding to get my head down. This would have been 2320 or 2321. I placed my book on the table, turned over onto my left side, pulled the cord to switch the light off and closed my eyes. Immediately I had an overwhelming feeling of fear that someone was in the room with me. I turned my head over my right shoulder and clearly saw a white figure stood facing me between the storage units in the door. By this point I was scrambling with my right hand to find the cord to switch the light back on. I watched this figure turn away from me and as I managed to finally grasp the cord and pull I saw this shape move towards the door before finally fading away. I knew I hadn't been sleeping as the bedside clock only showed 2322 or 2323 so only two minutes had passed. I was pretty shaken by the whole experience. So much so that I eventually moved to another part of the building and for the remainder of the time I spent in that room I'd never try to sleep in darkness again. I'd always leave the television on. In the days after I remember that three or four times in the months preceding that night I'd actually woken with a start convinced I'd seen someone in the room with me. However I'd put these down to waking suddenly and having images from a dream still in my mind or my eyes were adjusting to the dark. I also debated whether I'd imagined the whole thing but the room itself was always bathed in some ambient light. The curtains were RAF standard issue that is very thin and the lighthouse from the village was also visible. My door was also locked. To this day I'm convinced that what I saw was real. I'd never saw anything remotely scary like this before and haven't since. As a closing note I never told anyone about this at the time, not a soul. However the guy who was in the room directly below mine had asked to be moved to a different building. I asked him one night when we'd all had a few beers why he wanted to move. He wouldn't go into any great detail but said that a few times he thought he'd seen something in his room. I didn't press him for any further details and certainly kept my mouth shut about my own experience. Prior to what happened I would have described myself as an unbeliever. However after that night I've learned to keep a very open mind. If you like what you're hearing in Weird Darkness please tell somebody about the podcast, someone you know who loves creepy, strange stuff like you do. Also please leave a rating and review of the podcast in the podcast app you listen from. Doing so helps the show to get noticed. In fact, we've set it up now so that if you listen to the podcast in the Spreaker podcast player you can comment on individual episodes and I'll be notified so I can see your comments and respond to them. That's something I can't do in other podcast apps. You can find the free Spreaker podcast player in your mobile app store and thanks for helping to spread the Weird Darkness. Zeth's Phantom Friends by Wolf I want to share something that happened this past Sunday. I have a 15 month old boy named Zeth, yes with a Z, and since his birth now and then interesting things have happened. When he was a few months old he would look at the corner of the ceiling smiling and laughing at nothing. He'd do it at his daycare too. About three months ago my wife was home with him and he fell asleep on the floor by her side. She started taking pictures of him sleeping and in one a ball of light is next to him. It was the middle of a sunny day and only that one photo. So fast forward to last Sunday and my wife had left to go shopping in the morning while I stayed with Zeth. We were in the living room which has a small bathroom in one corner and then his toy chest is by that. I was on the couch in the middle of the room while he played near the toy chest. A quick note here, when he's shy or unsure of someone he comes and hides between or behind my legs. So he's playing when he suddenly stands up and looking at the corner of the bathroom is in, starts to walk sideways to me and pushes himself between my legs. All the while he's waving at the corner and saying bye-bye, pap. Now my father-in-law is pap-pap and Zeth will call him pap-pap, not pap. My father is grandpa but my grandfather is pap.  He just stays in my legs waving at the corner saying bye-bye, pap. I'm unsure but not worried as I get up and walk into the corner and look at Zeth urging him to come but he stays by the couch. He's not acting scared or crying but rather seems unsure. I come back and try to get him to play with his toys and he starts to do so. Now he has a rather large red and yellow dump truck that was a hand me down from a relative. If you press its roof the truck will talk and move around. Well the first day we turned it on for him he freaked out like crying and running from it even though he has other toys that do similar things. So we leave it off and he doesn't mind it then he'll push it around. While I get him to play with his toys but he keeps looking at the corner now and then. He's holding this dump truck and pushing it around when suddenly he stands up and quickly walks away from it while whining.  What's wrong Zeth? I ask as I push the roof of the truck to show it's not on. Zeth walked to the far side of the living room and looked at me. I picked the truck up and standing halfway held it out to him. It's okay Zeth it's off I say. He steps back more till he's against the wall and whining. I look at the truck. Okay this is strange I think as I hold it out. I didn't feel uneasy or anything but this truck is scaring my son. Nope not letting that happen. Okay Zeth Mr. dump truck is going to go bye bye okay I said as I open the back door but also in the living room and I set the truck on the back deck. No sooner had I closed the door Zeth ran up and started hitting the door with his hand and saying bye bye. He then ran into our kitchen to the window overlooking the deck and hit his hand against it while pointing out the window and saying that. Bye bye that. I watched him do this for a minute before taking him back into the living room. He looked at his toys and gave the area a wide berth as he walked around it. I couldn't get him to play with him again or go in the corner where the bathroom door was. He didn't cry or anything he just would stand and stare at me as I moved his toys around. Well I was unsettled because my son was bothered by something so I finally turned on the TV and sat him on the couch with me. He was fine after that and I was about to call my wife and ask her to come home soon but she got back a few minutes later. Once she was home, Zeth was fine. He walked to the bathroom door, he played with his toys, I told her what had happened and it was agreed. Screw the dump truck. I tossed it in the trash, still not sure what happened. We were worried something may have happened to my grandfather Pap but nothing has. We both believe children can see things we can't. I have my own feelings about it. I think he saw his guardian angel that day in the corner. He wasn't scared but shy and unsure. Why this angel may have been there, well my mother-in-law put it best. Maybe something was trying to come through that truck and Zeth's angel had to come to keep him safe. I don't really know and that's okay. Strange things have surrounded Zeth now and then even before my wife was pregnant with him. Two years before Zeth came we were at my cousin's house visiting with him and his wife. There was a storm rolling in as we were talking about names for our future kids. I said we picked out Serenity and Akidia for girls. When my cousin asked about the boy names I said, Zeth, as soon as I said that, a huge clap of thunder shook the house. Coincidence? The Recurring Nightmare of My Dad by Freddie. So to set this story as simple. I am 28 years old, a truck driver and I have some problems sleeping sometimes. But anyway, moving on, I have this weird Recurring Nightmare and while it's not all the time, it usually comes in one or two weeks spurts. My dad passed back in 2007 which is a part of this story but it actually begins in 2013. I left and went to Colorado to get my CDL commercial driver's license. This nightmare always starts the same way and feels so real. I wake up and start my morning routine. Wake up, get up and pull the curtain back over my windshield, sit down, light a cigarette and crack a monster. But something catches my eye. It's my dad sitting in the passenger seat. We talk, catch up and it's awesome. But it doesn't last long. He tells me that it's okay to be tired and be done. I always reply with something along the lines of, nah, okay, you taught me to keep working. And he always replies with, that's not what I mean. I can tell you're tired and ready to give up. That's where it turns. This thing is my dad or at least wearing him well and basically telling me to walk away from my family. I'll leave certain details out just because it could trigger some people fighting depression. I'm hoping that by typing this out and maybe putting it out there, it'll give me some type of relief. If you've ever dealt with recurring nightmares, I'd appreciate some input on how to stop it. Forest Perve by Ava Temple. This is a story my friend told me. It gave me chills and I wanted to share it here. So my friend Axel was out with some boys in the woods. They set up a tent and everything. So around two or three AM, the friends wanted to take a picture. So as Axel was sitting by the fireplace, he says that all the boys' faces, they turn white and one says, what the hell is that? So Axel turns around and sees what he thinks to be a skinwalker. I can't describe it, but he says it screeched at him and then left. That's all, it's weird. One Minute UFO by John G. My close encounter with a UFO took place in rural Iowa back in 1992. I can confidently categorize this object as a UFO because this object was definitely flying and I was then and remain to this day at a complete loss as to how to identify it. The object I observed was not one of those far away lights in the sky engaged in seemingly impossible maneuvers. No, this object passed slowly over my head at a height not much higher than nearby treetops. I stared directly at it for close to a minute. To sum, one short minute may not seem long enough to lend credibility to an eyewitness account of a UFO. I totally get it because I am as skeptical as anyone. But I'm also not prone to exaggeration. A single minute is about the amount of time that transpired from the instant this object entered my peripheral vision, arrested my full attention, floated directly overhead and flew steadily and silently out of sight toward the opposite horizon. I just moved my family to a rented farmhouse in rural Maxwell, Iowa. It was one of those old houses built in the latter part of the 19th century. The house was still standing thanks to a series of patchwork renovations made over the past century. Also, thanks to the fact the landowner decided to keep it as a rental property, we were its newest tenants. The yard at our new rural home was large enough to justify the purchase of a riding lawnmower. I made arrangements with a man in nearby Altoona, Iowa to purchase one that he had posted for sale. It was late afternoon, almost evening, a typical early autumn day. My four-year-old son was excited to go with his daddy to pick up our new lawnmower. We buckled ourselves into my little silver Mazda pickup, having a bed barely large enough to accommodate a riding lawnmower, and we made the 20-mile trip to the seller's house in Altoona, mostly barren country roads the whole way. The transaction went quickly, but by now the sun had dipped below the horizon. Darkness was settling upon us and a clear starry sky was taking shape overhead. We blocked the mower into the back and returned to the farmhouse, traveling the same country roads as before. I enjoyed spending time with my young son. I was one of those dads who encouraged imagination and creative thought in his kids. I had a way of turning even the most mundane things into some kind of memorable adventure, like purchasing a lawnmower. So, on this dark, starry night, he and I traveled these country roads singing and teasing and doing all those silly dad things that silly dads do, when suddenly the engine in my little Mazda pickup just died. I coasted slowly to the edge of the road and stopped. Like anyone would do, I made several attempts to restart the vehicle, but there was nothing. Not even that hopeful cranking noise, just the dreaded clicks. Even the headlights were going dim. I instructed my son to stay in the cab while I got out to open the hood and pretend to know what I was looking for. That's when I saw it, or should I say, felt it. While peering into the dark engine cavity of that mini-truck with the flimsy hood overhead, I felt an odd sensation that something was in the starry sky above me. I pulled my head out from under the hood and looked up and around. I thought I saw movement toward the northern horizon, just movement. No lights, no sound, just a black shadow moving in the black sky. I stared intently at the spot, not believing anything was really there. But something was there, and it was moving slowly and intentionally right toward us. My son was still pumped up with all the artificial childhood excitement silly dads are known to ignite in their kids just before bed time. He was chatting at me through the rolled down window still in silly mode. Meanwhile, dear old dad was not feeling silly anymore. I was secretly frightened of what was happening overhead and on the ground. I did not want to pass fear onto my son, so I said nothing to him about the mysterious object closing in on us. I placated his innocent silliness the best I could, at the same time praying to Jesus Christ to protect us and get us out of here. I stared helplessly at the approaching shadow, bracing myself for anything weird that might happen, but praying with all the faith and determination I could muster that nothing was going to harm my son.  I watched it approach. It took notice of my brain function attempting to ascribe familiarity to this thing. I remember thinking this must be some guy flying a hang glider. Yeah, I would explain it, but do hang glide pilots fly over barren Iowa cornfields in total darkness without lights? I don't know, do they? As it drew closer, my hope for it being a hang glider evaporated. I could not tell what it was, even though it drifted directly above me and I stared at it the entire time. It had no definite shape. It seemed to shift. I imagined seeing the familiar shape of a flying craft, but I can't be sure. The only thing I am certain of is black shadow. The same uncertainty applies to the sound that it made. If it made any sound at all, the sensation was barely evident. The sound was so discreet, I can't say with certainty that I actually heard a sound or just felt the soft whisper of a low steady breeze that seemed to synchronize with its movement. The object traveled in a straight line, barely above the height of nearby treetops. I continued to watch it as it continued its slow, silent, straight line flight toward the south horizon until it exceeded the limits of my vision. Puzzled but relieved, I closed the hood of my pickup and rejoined my son inside the cab. We prayed in Jesus' name to help our car start and it started right up as if nothing had happened. We drove home and continued our silly dad-son banter. Not until he was grown did I tell him about that unidentified, dark, silent shadow that floated directly over our heads.  He remembers thinking how cool it was. The Jesus fixed the truck. Psychic Teenager by Kess Ronan Ever since I was little, i.e. since I was about nine, I was able to get a sense of energies, see some versions of the future, and know when people are going to die. I know most stories are about one experience in particular but I want to tell several without going too far into detail. I'm 15 now and after many sleepless pondering nights I've still not made sense of it all. My first account was fairly mundane. I saw a regular day in my life three days before it happened. I could recall the conversations, what I had for lunch, etc. It was weird because whenever this happens on the day I predicted I feel, for lack of a better word, weird. Everything that happened that day scared me. I was extremely jumpy, nervous, and downright anxious. That was the first time. A mystifying experience. The next few times followed the same patterns. Sometimes the visions, I guess I can call them that, happened the next day. Sometimes it was a week. Sometimes they have yet to be lived out by yours truly. The two most memorable accounts are as follows. I was 11 and in my bedroom when 2 a.m. rolled around. I woke with a start and I swear to God I could feel something in my room. It was dark. It was evil but it didn't want to hurt me. For some reason I just sort of hovered above me with no particular shape. The thing seemed satisfied as if it knew whatever it asked I'd obey. I was young, I was alone, and I was terrified. After a few minutes although they seemed like hours, it left. It took three days of crying, hiding from the world and a ton of comforting music until I was able to sleep again. I was 13 and hanging out with my older sister, 16 at the time, and I remember we were listening to music, in particular a song by John Bellion, I believe. I'm pretty sure it's called Beautiful Now. When the song builds up to its beat drop, the tempo of the music increases until it's just one beat going faster and faster. Well, all of a sudden, according to my sister, I took a deep breath in and my eyes darted back and forth as if watching something. She told me that she watched as a single tear rolled down my cheek, although it did not leave a wet mark, she swears it was there. Then when I came out of the vision I started panting hard, my heart feeling as if it was about to explode. My muscles, my bones, my very nerves were screaming with a need, the need to help, to save, to fight. What I saw still terrifies me to this day.  There were people trying to climb from the outside to get in, and every time a new face appeared at the top of the wall, a sniper shot them down. I felt as though I were in a scene from a movie. I couldn't move. My mouth was open to scream, but no sound emanated from my lips, and my feet were stuck in this deep mire. I call it mire because mud or muck does not do this substance justice. I remember seeing that a boy somehow had dug under the wall. He was around six or seven years old and was carrying his three-year-old sister. Just as he pulled them out from under the wall he looked up and now my head was forced to turn as well. Standing there on top of some sort of machine in a perfectly tailored black and dark blue striped suit was a white man. It was average height, but his smile, his smile was the feral grin of a deranged lunatic about to torture and kill. I watched in horror as he looked over and nodded at one of the snipers.  His little sister sat by his fallen body, and she looked up right into my own sad eyes. I watched as she cried a single tear of blood that ran down her cheek and hit the ground before I was pulled back into the waking world. Yep, you heard me, a single tear drop composed of blood. I didn't tell my sister all these gory details, but I did tell her most of it. That night I didn't sleep. I cried, and at one point I basically howled in agony.   The lights are out, and you're listening to weird darkness, but suddenly you get that feeling you're not alone. You don't know what might be under the bed or in the closet or in the attic or in the room with you. You don't dare try to sleep now. You're too scared to.  That's just one more reason to have weird dark roast coffee in the cupboard because you just never know when you might need it. Weird dark roast coffee contains deep notes of cocoa, caramel, and a touch of sinister sweetness. Each bag is fresh roasted to order by Evansville Coffee and delivery is free for your first order. Just use the promo code Weird, you can find a link to it at WeirdDarkness.com. Grab a bag before something else grabs you from the dark. The Sevens by DD Lee. Some backstory, I used to be a nanny and was popular throughout my town in terms of who to call. At my church, I'd work in the nursery with kids three years old and younger. There was a new family attending my church. Let's call them the Smiths with two younger daughters, three-year-old Sally and one-year-old Sarah, fake names for privacy. I got along great with these little girls and their mom eventually asked me to start babysitting them. Same old, same old, so I agreed. Up on a hill sat their beautiful large farmhouse with old stone walls lining the property. Out back past the wall was a long field with a colonial cemetery tucked in the corner. The day I visited, their dad was talking me through the house and showing me the ropes, and I noticed that there were no TVs, no computers, no landlines, but I chalked it up to mean that they were just old-fashioned. Finally, their dad's about to leave when he turns to me and says, oh, I almost forgot, if Sally mentions the Sevens at nap time, disregard. I remember laughing a little and asking, what are the Sevens? But he's dead serious when he looks at me and repeats, like I said, just disregard. Kind of weird, but whatever. We have a fine morning playing games and enjoying a lovely day outside. Too quickly, 2pm rolls around and it's time to put the girls down for a nap. Before we head upstairs, Sally hugs me tight while I'm cradling Sarah and says, I won't sleep, I won't sleep. I just thought it was a kid not wanting a nap, so I said, it's okay, I'll stay with you until you fall asleep. So she listened and followed me to Sarah's room first, who was already fast asleep in my arms. I put her in her cradle, turned off the light, and closed the shades as instructed and closed the door. I then turned to Sally, who was just staring at her dark room. Waiting a minute to see what she'd do, I finally tapped the top of her head. Hello, anybody in there? She giggles and runs off into her room. I follow and sit next to her under a canopy with a book. About half way through, she inhales sharp, freezes and whispers, the sevens are here. I stop reading, stunned and slightly creeped out to then say, what? The sevens, Sally whispers, eyes on her closet, they're here. I sit a minute, hearing and seeing nothing. Sally? She doesn't respond or look away from her closet. Can you tell me who the sevens are? The sevens, still whispering, are orange and skinny. They have deer horns. Quiet!  She begins to cry, oh my gosh, Sally, what's wrong? They're crawling on the walls. She stands and looks around the room. They don't like us, Dee. She picks up all of her toys and pillows and begins chucking them at the wall, screaming, get out, get out, get out. I pick Sally up and run out of the bedroom, down the stairs and into the living room. Wait, we have to go get Sarah too. As soon as I put her down, she bolts back up the stairs and just stands, facing Sarah's door around the corner. I run back up and my mouth drops. Her door is now wide open and she is sitting in the middle of her floor in a dark room unharmed. She can't stand, let alone walk, and the crib is a good three and a half feet off the ground. I run in and scoop her up, checking for bumps and scratches. When I turn, Sally's just standing in the doorway. The sevens are here. Okay, I exclaim, nap time's over, let's go. I grab Sally's hand and she clings tight when halfway down the stairs, the dog starts howling. We all scream, startled. Sarah begins to cry. I yell, ginger, hush, it's just us. But the dog doesn't stop barking. She's a large golden retriever jumping wildly at the back door. Looking out the window, I think to myself, we weren't supposed to have bad weather today. She wants to go out, Sally says, and she runs over and lets ginger run off without a leash. Oh no, Sally! Good thinking, but we gotta put her on a leash first, I say, running outside, chasing down the dog. Dee, don't, she's fighting the sevens. I freeze, still holding Sarah and we all watch their dog jump the stone wall and run into the field, disappearing into the fog toward the old cemetery. We sit on the swings in their backyard and wait, listening. After what feels like forever, the fog starts to clear up and we see ginger trotting back, covered head to toe in dirt. I look at Sally. What should we do now? Her gaze is distant and clouded. Both girls look exhausted. We get the hose. So we spray ginger down and the sun finally reappears. Is it safe to go back in the house? I'm totally submitting to her rules now. Not typical of a trained nanny, but I don't want to make anything worse. Yeah, it's good now.  During dinner I ask a few questions. Sally, when did you first meet the sevens? When we moved here, she said, with a mouth full of food. Do they ever touch you? They try, but they just say mean things and jump on all the beds. What do they say? They say, she takes another bite, this is our house, this is our house, leave.  I nod, do they talk to Sarah too or just you? Yeah, silly. They can only touch her. That's why she wasn't in her bed, but they don't hurt her because they used to have a Sarah too. I'm baffled and extremely confused. What does that mean they used to have a Sarah? Sally just shrugs and keeps eating. Probably like they used to have a baby too. Do they come every day? Yeah, only at nap time though, at night they stay outside. So they're here all the time, I ask, trying to understand. I guess, I don't know, but mommy and daddy can't see them. Eating her last bite, she then asks, do you believe me? Take a minute to answer, but remembering her dad's response earlier, her parents probably tried to ignore it. Kids can't fake being scared the way she was, and there's no explaining what happened to Sarah either. I believe you, kiddo. I remember Sally's sweet smile after that and her saying, can I have dessert? I went on to nanny them for about a year and a half until I babysat their dog alone when they all went on vacation. Sally had left a picture for me. She drew of Ginger and I sitting in the field behind her house. It was cute, except later on that day, that's exactly where we were when the fog rolled in and I watched Ginger collapse. I ran out and she wouldn't stop puking. I called their grandmother for help, who took Ginger to the vet hospital. The following week, I got a call from Sally and Sarah's mom saying that Ginger died. I only babysat one last time for the Smiths after that. It was a month after their dog died that Sally told me Ginger ate one of the sevens. She then took my hand to show me the spot I'd seen Ginger fall on. Grass no longer grows in that spot of the field. After high school, I went on to join the military and couldn't nanny anymore. They have since moved, and what's strange is that I see the new family that occupies their old house when I drive by. A young couple, with a toddler and a baby, and a brand new chocolate lab, attending my church. If you made it this far, welcome to the Weirdo family. If you like the podcast, please tell your friends and family about it however you can, and maybe ask them to become Weirdos too. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Click on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com and I might use it in a future episode. Also on the website you can find the Weirdo's Facebook group, Paranormal and Horror Audio Books that I've narrated, the Weird Darkness store, my contact info and social media links, plus you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression, anxiety, or thoughts of suicide. All stories in this episode are purported to be true and all were written by Weirdos like you, listeners to the podcast. If you'd like to send your true scary story, you can send it to me by visiting the Tell Your Story page at WeirdDarkness.com Weird Darkness is a registered trademark of Marlar House Productions, and now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Romans 5, verse 8, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And a final thought by Vince Lombardi. It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. And until next time, John 12 46. Want to receive the commercial-free version of Weird Darkness every day? For just $5 per month, you can become a patron at WeirdDarkness.com. As a patron, you get commercial-free episodes of Weird Darkness every day. Bonus audio. And you also receive chapters of audio books as I narrate them, even before the authors and publishers hear them. But more than that, as a patron, you're also helping to reach people who are desperately hurting with depression and anxiety. You get the benefits of being a patron, and you also benefit others who are hurting at the same time. Become a patron at WeirdDarkness.com


The authors use a transfer learning technique to initialize the parameters of the VQA with those obtained from solving a smaller problem, then apply these parameters to a larger problem. Simulations have shown that this method can reduce the occurrence of the baron plateau and improve the training efficiency. This article was authored by Huan Yu Liu, typing Sun, Yu Chen Wu, and others.