UN to assist establishment of provincial referendum bodies in Unity Sate

By Bonifacio Taban Kuich

October 2, 2010 (BENTIU)-The United Nation Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has said it will provide technical and logistical assistant to establish provincial committees of Southern Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC) in Unity State, particularly in the counties of Payinjiar, Leer, Mayiandit, Koch, Guit, Abiehnom, Mayom and Pariang.

UNMIS’s coordinator in Unity State, Mr. Kwame, told Sudan Tribune two days ago during the state’s Commissioners Forum that their role as a UN mission was to monitor the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 between the National Congress Party in north Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in south Sudan.

The agreement ended decades of north-south civil war and promised the south a chance to gain full independence from the north in a referendum vote scheduled for January 2011.

Kwame stressed the need for strong support in terms of security and logistics in order to enable the authorities in south Sudan to meet the referendum deadline in January 9, 2011, saying that such pursuit is needed to maintain peaceful co-existence in Sudan.

The UNMIS official explained that the mission would not be observing the referendum because its mandate does not allow double-role.

On September 23, the director of UNMIS’s Integrated Referendum and Electoral Division (UNIRED), Denis K. Kadima, told reporters in Khartoum that the mission would only be acting as a provider of technical and logistical assistance and not as an observer of the referendum process.

Another UN body, however, will be engaged in the process of monitoring the referendum. The UN’s Secretary-General Referendum Monitoring Panel, which has been invited by the CPA signatories, will observe the vote under the leadership of former President of Tanzania Benjamin Mukafa.

The referendum process will also be observed by a host of international and regional organizations, the most notable of which is the US-based Carter Center and the African Union.

(ST)