Unity state: South Sudan’s VP Machar queues three hours to cast his vote
By Bonifacio Taban Kuich
January 9, 2011 (BENTIU) – Long queues began forming 6 am Sunday morning to hours before polling opened as voters in Unity state prepared to vote in the southern Sudan’s independence referendum.
Turn out in Unity state appears to be large with even the Vice President of South Sudan, Riek Machar Teny, waiting in the queue for three hours to cast his vote.
Machar added that he never expected the turnout to be so high but said this was a clear statement that shows that Southern Sudanese are ready to become independent and create a new country.
Speaking to the crowds of voters in Bentui, Sudan Tribune found that the mood is in favor of separating from the north. The vote was brought about by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in Navaisha Kenya between the dominant parties of north and south Sudan after decades of civil war.
In Church on Sunday Sunday morning, Fr. Samuel Akoch Ber while addressing his congregation asked them to hold up their voting slip in preparation for casting their ballot.
He added that this time, “we the Southern Sudanese should keep in mind that our freedom will be achieved through the voting exercise as agree upon [in] the Naivasha peace deal” between the north’s ruling National Congress Party and the former rebel group the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.
Ber added that he appreciated the diplomatic pressure that the international community had put on Khartoum to ensure the vote was held on schedule.
Shiekh Abdalah Gani Babiker a Muslim leader in Unity State, told Sudan Tribune that the conflict between the north and South Sudan was not because of religion but over political power. Sudan’s civil war started the same year Islamic Shar’a Law was enforced upon the south but it also has its roots in political and economical marginalization, resources (oil and water) and national identity.
Babbiker said that Muslim communities in the state will recognize the outcome of South Sudan referendum results. He said the role of religious leaders during the referendum is to make sure that people continue to believe in peace.
Gai Chang Keah a blind man, who cast his vote on Sunday in favor of independence at Dare polling center in Bentiu, told Sudan Tribune that he was very excited to show the world that the Southern Sudanese need to be free and that the referendum is conducted fairly.
(ST)
Mercy Madit
Unity state: South Sudan’s VP Machar queues three hours to cast his vote
Machar to queue for three hours, why??? No elders respect in Unity state?
Well he should have come to Bor to where elders are prioritise and respected.
$iong mayom
Unity state: South Sudan’s VP Machar queues three hours to cast his vote
I know this traitor will vote for UNITY. Never trust him.
Bol Deng
Unity state: South Sudan’s VP Machar queues three hours to cast his vote
Dear Chucker,
Please, you advise you that when you fail to accept the truth being told to you then it is very hard to learn and be a future leader. No wonder this is why you got no leader in your huts because no one cab be abble to learn and adapt the truth that can lead to leadership.
Asound minded person can judge that a loser always join a winner side. In our case, who join SPLM/A. If Dr Garang was a losser,he would have join SSIM. Why do Dr John Stay with SPLM/A instead of SSIM. And why Dr Riek Join SPLM/A instead of sticking with SSIM. Good luck with that narrow thinking capacity and you will regrete in the near future at the time you left behind while others reached the climax. Thanks
Deng E. Manyuon
Unity state: South Sudan’s VP Machar queues three hours to cast his vote
That was impressive! Our leaders have reaally impressed me with their attitudes during this Referendum voting process. I have also seen the Interior Minister of Southern Sudan separating from his wife in roder join ordinary people queue. I hope this should make a new begining for the nation of Southern Sudan. A nation that respects diversity and works for inclusion of each and every human in the South regardless of tribe, ethnicity, gender or religion.
I hope this Referendum is a begining of healing and forgiveness.
Cheers
Deng
$iong mayom
Unity state: South Sudan’s VP Machar queues three hours to cast his vote
How can someone possibly not accept that Riak is a traitor. He stabbed the movement in the back and fled to Khartoum,stayed there and came back only when he sniffed peace coming.Typical coward. What a dog.
Gatwech
Unity state: South Sudan’s VP Machar queues three hours to cast his vote
HOW TO ROW THE LAST DINKA BOAT FROM ARABS TO NUER SHORE
Hi guys,
Do you know how to row a Dinka last boat across the river from Arabs shore (united Sudan) to Nuer+ shore (independent South)?
We will continue to tolerate you until zero hour when our final freedom is achieved. Why, because we know who you are culturally from your grandpa to your offsprings.
Some of you even dared to question the wisdom used in tolerating you (while corrupting) and dragging you slowly to the freedom day.
Do you know how to shoot two birds with one stone? Well, it was Dr. Riek Machar whom you hated for correcting your past kings and turning the direction of the ship to the right path (self-determination in 1991).
When Nuer leaders+ understood that Garang was for unity with Arabs if granted leadership in the South, they looked for other smart ways to completely turn the whole southern ship around to path of self-determination. This was to bring both Bashir (North) and Garang (South0 to self-determination.
In 1997, Khartoum Peace Agreement (KPA, now CPA) was signed: Bashir was forced by the mother of all strategies designed by Dr. Riek and committed himself to the right of self-determination (first time in Sudan’s history). Bashir thought by doing so, Riek would be his permanent ally. Riek strategically “landed on his feet” as written by Western writer in his book. He smartly took advantage of Bashir’s desperation to win his alliance by deeply inserting the issue of self-determination with Bashir as the condition for the new alliance.
Bashir accepted the condition thinking that he would run away from it one day. Dr. Riek knew that he would cut off the alliance with Bashir when the time was right after planting the issue of self-determination with the government, northern political parties, international community, people of the South, and then Garang.
The self-determination commitment by the North, which they thought would run away from, got stuck with Bashir’s government as the pressure on all directions began to mount. The latter (Riek’s strategy) succeeded, but the former (Bashir’s belief) discontinued. Self-determination has got stuck in the vocabulary of Bashir even after losing Riek’s strategic alliance.
The next was how to bring Garang to his senses. Late John Garang was forced by the international community and South Sudanese (as expected in the strategy process) to reunite with Riek on the basis of self-determination or lose support. (You know he could not survive without support). Riek traded leadership with self-determination by telling Garang to be the leader with the condition that he accepts self-determination as twin vision with his so-called united new Sudan.
Well, Bashir’s alliance with Riek has failed as was the leadership of Garang. But self-determination has survived!!! This is what we are celebrating today, 9th January.
Some argue why Riek did not sign any of CPA’s protocols. The answer is simple. Accordiing to the Nuer wisdom which your likes would never understand. Riek wanted you people to be proud of CPA on his self-determination to referendum so that you don’t spoil it using the so-called united Sudan.
Perhaps he wanted you to feel the delusional ownership of the CPA on self-determination so that you support its implementation in full.
Even when your greediness, known to all southerners and the whole world surfaced in 2005 by forming the government with most of your tribe in the government, the Nuer wisdom which knows your culture tolerated you so that you eat and corrupt to satisfy yourselves in order to support the match to referendum. You would have spoiled it if you were not allowed to eat like orphans from the Nuer oil money.
Thanks to God that Salva Kiir is alive and well until the voting day because without him, your likes (Dinka) who believe in ‘Benydits’ would have lost hope and vote for unity. You would have refused an independent South led by non-Dinka. The Nuer wisdom told them to allow the Dinka to eat in order to be carried by the wind of separation.
Well, I am wasting my time lecturing to people who don’t have the guts to understand the deep wisdom of the Nuer.
We congratulate ourselves for carrying you on board of separation and in the process destroyed the so-called united new Sudan, your vision which was after second class citizenship. Garang was baptized in the name of separation when he finally confessed and told the people of South Sudan not to vote to be second class citizens.
Our goal is to achieve independent South no matter how we tolerate greedy species through giving them the hope of eating for ever even during independent South.
After independence, well guess what…….Good governance and accountibility shall be the next goal. Will “banydits” survive an era of good governance and accountability? I guess not because the culture of banydits based on slave-master relationships plus corruption and lack of equality-oriented cultural value will make it difficult for them to manage.
Ahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…………..