Quick note on who’s “kicking off” the speeches:

The assistant president of Sudan, Nafie Ali Nafie kicks off the speeches at noon on Wednesday.

About Nafie:

An unexpected key player in Darfur peace efforts

KHARTOUM, SUDAN — He’s accused of torturing enemies, cozying up to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s and plotting to assassinate Egypt’s president.

But presidential advisor Nafie Ali Nafie says his moderation and pragmatism won him his latest assignment: overseeing the Sudanese government’s response to the conflict in Darfur.

SNIP

Nafie, a former agriculture professor who was plucked to serve as head of intelligence and security from 1989 to 1995, has often played the “bad cop” in one of Africa’s most powerful and long-lasting regimes.

“He was my interrogator,” said Farouk Mohammed Ibrahim, a former University of Khartoum science professor and government critic who was arrested in 1989 and held in one of Sudan’s notorious, secret “ghost houses” for 12 days.

There you have it. First up is former Sudanese head of intelligence and security and interrogator, Nafie Ali Nafie.