Referendum: Southern Sudanese stage massive protests in Australia

By Julius N. Uma

December 22, 2010 (GULU) – Hundreds of South Sudanese living in Australia reportedly demonstrated in protest Monday against what some of them describe as the Khartoum regime’s deliberate attempt to allegedly sabotage the south’s forthcoming referendum on independence.

The referendum, earmarked for January 09, 2011 is a key part of Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended over two-decades of a bloody civil war fought between Christian-dominated south and mainly Islamic north.

The protestors, according to the Daily Monitor newspaper in Uganda, went to the streets of Queensland streets in large numbers, chanting songs of freedom and anti-President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir slogans.

“Sudanese around the world who have lost families and friends in Africa’s longest civil war, are outraged and shocked at the lack of response from Khartoum government, regarding the outstanding issues in the 2005 peace deal,” Godfrey Aleu, an official from My Referendum for Freedom (MRF), a pressure group was quoted saying.

Any sabotage to the referendum process, he added, would easily exacerbate the situation resulting into a return to conflict.

Reacting over the same situation, Biong Deng Biong, MRF’s international coordinator said the Khartoum government has always used delayed tactics in implementation of the CPA, citing the 2008 incident in the oil-producing Abyei region where several people lost lives in violent clashes.

“War is the last thing South Sudanese want to see now,” Biong was quoted saying, adding that the solution to conflict in Sudan lies in Khartoum sticking to the January 9, a date set within the CPA for the referendum.

He said the protests in Australia would put pressure on Bashir’s government to implement most of the key aspects of the agreement, particularly, the Abyei referendum and north-south border demarcation.

In a strongly-worded position paper seen by Sudan Tribune, Ken Ochieng, MRF Director said that there is strong need for the intervention of the international community to push for the full scale implementation of the CPA.

“South Sudanese feel helpless and want the Australian and the international community to recognize the need to take action. Innocent families are at risk of genocide like the one in Darfur especially in Abyei,” Ochieng remarked.
Meanwhile, other similar protests were also reported in Australian cities of Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney.

Australia is one of the nine countries outside Sudan where Southern Sudanese will be able to vote in the referendum. Registration for the poll ended on December 8 with over 3.2 million people registering.

According to Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau, Diaspora voting officially closed on December 8, with the exception of Egypt and the US where the start was delayed for technical reasons.

Voters in Egypt and the US have until December 18 and 22 respectively to register.

The bureau announced on December 14 9,431 have registered in Australia; 2,294 in Canada; 2,985 in Egypt; 7,370 in Ethiopia; 15,021 in Kenya; 13,291 in Uganda; and 654 people in the UK.

The referendum on the self-determination of the southern population is a key part of Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Pace Agreement (CPA), which ended over two-decades of a bloody civil war between Christian dominated south and the north, which is governed by Islamic Sharia Law.

(ST)