Sudan’s spy chief calls on Juba to safeguard northerners during referendum
December 30, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), the state security watchdog, has announced its readiness to assert security during the referendum process on the independence of the semi-autonomous region of South Sudan.
Atta, who was speaking on Thursday during a meeting with the speaker of Sudan’s National Assembly Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Tahir, said that all security apparatuses are on standby to prepare the atmosphere and safeguard all northerners and southerners in north Sudan.
Sudan’s official news agency SUNA reported that Atta has urged the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) to do likewise by protecting northerners in its territories.
Last September, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that authorities in the North and South should pledge not to expel minorities if the South votes to become an independent nation.
“Both southerners in the north and northerners living in Southern Sudan told Human Rights Watch that they feared retaliation, 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.
In less than two weeks, South Sudan citizens should go to the polls on January 9, 2011 to decide whether they wish to remain united with the north or secede to form their own independent nation.
The politically sensitive plebiscite is a key plank of the 2005’s peace deal which ended decades of civil war between the predominantly Muslim north and the south, where most people ascribe to Christianity or traditional beliefs.
All indications suggest that southerners will vote overwhelmingly for secessions.
(ST)