Unity made unattractive

By Alfred Taban, The Khartoum Monitor

Feb 1, 2006 — Recent utterances by UN officials about unity in Sudan are so distasteful that they made us suspicious about what the UN is really up to.

Jack Christophides, the US Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) chief political affairs officer was quoted recently in Khartoum Monitor as saying that the UN Security Council has mandated them to make unity attractive.

When was this mandate handed over to the UN and under what circumstances? What we are aware of is that the UN is here to help ensure our compliance with the CPA, separate us when we confront one another and bring about harmony, provide us with some essential services, resettle and rehabilitate us, help feed our displaced and hungry, help us with our development plans and much more important things, monitor the conduct of our separation or unity referendum so that it reflects the true wishes of the Southern Sudanese people.

If the UN has been mandated to make unity attractive, then it has disqualified itself as a neutral body in our referendum.

This is a body that believes in unity, and it has been sent to Sudan to bring that about, how can those who are for separation trust such a body? This so-called mandate is also sweet music in the ears of the ruling National Congress Party, which has been working to bring about unity.

This will give this party a chance to rig the results of the plebiscite in its favour as it knows the UN, which has the mandate stated by Christopohides, is unlikely to oppose this is what it wants to happen in the first place. The job of making unity attractive or unattractive is the work of the Sudanese and Sudanese alone.

From what I see the authorities in Khartoum are doing very well in making unity unattractive. We call on the UN to maintain strict neutrality and conduct a clean, fair and credible referendum. Leave the rest of the job to us, the Sudanese people.