South Sudan leader meets with UN Secretary General

September 22, 2010 (WASHINGTON) – The First Vice president of Sudan and South Sudan president Salva Kiir today met with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for talks on the self-determination referendum that is supposed to take place next year.

Yesterday, the UN chief announced the establishment of the three-member panel that will monitor the monitor the South Sudan and Abyei referendum.

“The Secretary-General expressed his concern that the Abyei Referendum Commission is still not established. They discussed the importance of holding the referenda on time, free of violence and intimidation. The SG expressed the international community’s determination to respect its outcome, and underscored the need,” said a statement by the world body on the meeting.

Under a 2005 peace agreement, South Sudan is due in January to vote in a referendum on independence and most observers expect southerners to overwhelmingly back full independence.

Another referendum will take place simultaneously in the contested oil-rich region of Abyei, where residents will have to decide whether they want to be part of north or south Sudan.

The composition of Abyei’s referendum commission has not yet been revealed because of North-South disagreements.
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The North and South have been well behind schedule in preparing for the key vote casting doubt over whether it can be held on time.

Furthermore, the two sides are still negotiating on a number of contentious post-referendum arrangements particularly border demarcation, citizenship, oil, national debt and international agreements.

Some diplomats suspect President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir has been deliberately dragging his feet over the referendums.

“I came away from the last Security Council briefing very worried about what is going to happen,” one UN ambassador told Agence France Presse (AFP), speaking on condition of anonymity.

This month the UN Security Council (UNSC) stressed that the referendum must be held as planned and to resolve key remaining post-referendum issues.

UN officials say privately they expect the referendum could be “messy” and “delayed,” but that there are signs Khartoum is already resigned to losing the south and neither side wants a new war.

“Nothing is inevitable, but most close observers of Sudan would surmise that in a credible referendum process that reflects the will of the southern Sudanese people, that they would opt for independence,” said a US official.

“They may not. We will respect their will and the outcome and we need to prepare for both.”

The United States has offered Khartoum economic and diplomatic incentives on the condition it allows the vote to take place, implements the 2005 peace deal and resolves outstanding issues in Darfur.

Speaking at the United Nations, U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday pledged support for a peaceful shift to democracy in Sudan as he declared a new U.S. approach to development.

Obama is among those scheduled to attend a special summit on Sudan during the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Friday that is expected to signal renewed global support for holding the vote on time.

Today, Kiir also assured that minorities will not be harmed should South Sudan vole for independence in direct reference to Northerners living in the South.

“Those who want to remain in the south will have nothing to fear. They are most welcome,” he said during an event in New York organized by the International Peace Institute.
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“There are people from the south in the north and vice versa. We need to protect these people with their property so no one infringes on their rights.”

Kiir said northern nomadic peoples who move to the south to graze their cattle in the dry season would not be impeded.

This week Human Rights Watch said that both southerners in the north and northerners living in southern Sudan fear retaliation or even expulsion if secession were approved.

“The two parties to the peace agreement — the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the southern ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) — should state publicly that they will not expel each other’s minorities,” it added.

(ST)