South Sudan leadership meets key stakeholders in independence referendum

December 22, 2010 (JUBA) – The semi-autonomous regional government of southern Sudan has conducted a series of meetings this week with various parties involved in the region’s upcoming referendum on independence, which is due to take place on January 9, 2011.

The southern leadership has expressed its commitment to conduct a free, fair and transparent referendum in a peaceful environment and urged all the stakeholders in the process to play their roles in supporting or monitoring the exercise.

In subsequent meetings chaired by the region’s Vice President, Riek Machar, the leadership urged the Southern Sudan political parties, as well as those from the north, to have a strong presence at the polling stations by deploying their agents to monitor the exercise. There are around 24 political parties operating in Sudan’s south.

The meeting with the political parties and heads of referendum taskforces in the ten states of Southern Sudan and international observers in the presence of the leadership of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission reviewed the progress and challenges of the process.

In a separate briefing with the heads of diplomatic missions in Juba, the Vice President stressed that it was important for all parties involved to recognize the outcome of the referendum. In particular he stressed the importance of presence in the polling centers of party agents of the Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) the partner in peace deal with the former rebels who know govern the south, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), so that the outcome will be clear to all.

In the 2005 power and wealth sharing agreement, the SPLM and NCP agreed that the south be granted the right to secede through a referendum if the six year interim period did not convince them unity was an attractive option. However, the south is widely expected to vote to secede from the north, after the slow and at times acrimonious implementation of the agreements protocols.

Most significantly the north south border has yet to be demarcated despite only 17 days left until voting begins. The two sides have also failed to agree on the commission to run, what was supposed to be a simultaneous referendum in the border region of Abyei, to decide if the oil-producing area will join a potentially newly independent south.

In the meeting on Monday, Machar reiterated the Government of Southern Sudan’s (GoSS) commitment to continue building a good relationship with the north irrespective of the outcome of the plebiscite, pointing to the importance of two viable states even if the south secedes and forms its own independent state.

“Regardless of the referendum outcome, GoSS will persist in its determined efforts to build a new ‘win-win’ and peaceful relationship with the North based on mutual respect and recognition of our common economic interests.”

“GoSS is committed to reaching an agreement with the North that will allow for a peaceful transition and cooperative post-referendum relationship in the areas of citizenship, security, economic and financial issues (including issues related to the division of debts, and assets, banking and currency, water and the oil sector), and international treaties and agreements.”

“It is in the mutual interest of all the peoples of Sudan that, if there is a vote for secession in the referendum, there should be two strong, stable and viable future states joined by economic, cultural and social cooperation,” Machar read in a statement to the diplomats.

Machar criticized the speech made by Sudan’s President Omer Hassan al-Bashir on Sunday, in which he declared that the North would fully implement Islamic Sharia’ law and impose Arabic as the national language in the north should the South secede and form an independent state.

In a speech to supporters in the eastern town of Al-Gadarif, Bashir said: “If god forbids, the South separates [then] the constitution will be amended [and] a lot of things relating to the South will go away.

“But the opaque talk [about] the Sudanese people I don’t know what…is multi-racial and multi-religious, the [Islamic] Shari’a will be the main source for lawmaking….and Arabic language will the official language of the state as will be stipulated in the upcoming constitution.”

The head of the SPLM’s Northern sector Yasir Arman responded said Bashir’s statements would encourage repression in the north.

“This type of discourse is preparing the ground for a police state. The north, whether alone or with the south, is an extremely diverse place.”

Arman said it was the north’s hard-line stance that had pushed southerners towards separation.

“If it [the north] continues like this it will encourage other areas like Darfur, the Nuba mountains and eastern Sudan to walk out as well,” he added, referring to areas on the peripheries of northern Sudan.

Echoing Arman’s comments Machar said that it was not the South alone that formed the diversity of Sudan. He further explained to the diplomats that northern Sudan, even without the South, will remain predominantly non-Arab with various languages and religions, adding that the President’s speech in which he declared the north’s future as Islamic state would be problematic for the future of the region.

Officials from Egypt and Libya have also blamed the imposition of Shari’a law for pushing southerners towards independence. Western nations fear that Sudan may end up becoming isolated and Islamist after the south splits.

The Vice President also briefed the delegation of the United Nations Secretary General’s Panel on the Referenda (Abyei is due to decide whether it will join the south in a separate referendum), headed by the former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mpaka, on the referendum exercise.

The Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau chairman, Chan Reec Madut, announced during the Monday meeting with the diplomats that more than 3.5 million southerners have been registered. Around 3.5 million were registered in the South, over 116,000 in the North and 59,700 plus in the Diaspora. The figures from registration in the United States have not yet been submitted.

He also informed the meeting that the ballot papers would arrive in Juba by Wednesday and distribution to polling centers would begin immediately.

(ST)