  Quiescence and burst emission and relativistic particle winds of soft
gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) have been widely interpreted to result from
ultrastrongly magnetized neutron stars. In this magnetar model, the magnetic
energy and gravitational energy of the neutron stars are suggested as the
energy sources of all the emission and winds. However, Harding, Contopoulos &
Kazanas (1999) have shown that the magnetic field should be only ~ 3 x 10^{13}
G in order to match the characteristic spin-down timescale of SGR 1806-20 and
its SNR age. Here we argue that if the magnetic field is indeed so weak, the
previously suggested energy sources seem problematic. We further propose a
plausible model in which SGR pulsars are young strange stars with
superconducting cores and with a poloidal magnetic field of ~ 3 x 10^{13} G. In
this model, the movement of the flux tubes not only leads to crustal cracking
of the stars, giving rise to deconfinement of crustal matter to strange matter,
but also to movement of internal magnetic toruses with the flux tubes. The
former process will result in burst and quiescence emission and the latter
process will produce steady relativistic winds which will power the surrounding
supernova remnants.
