Khartoum will respect South Sudan referendum outcome: al-Bashir

South Sudan has welcomed assurances made by Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir on 3rd January that he will respect the outcome of Sunday's independence referendum.

South Sudan's information minister Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin was quoted by the BBC on 5th January saying he was pleased by al-Bashir's comments. Benjamin said the vote will allow the people of South Sudan to decide their own future for the first time since 1898.

Al-Bashir made what is being seen to be his 'fairwell visit' visit to South Sudan, and in a speech to southern officials in Juba he said, “The preferred choice for us is unity, but in the end we will respect the choice of the southern citizens.”

Al-Bashir said he remains committed to lasting peace with the semi-autonomous region, and said that even if a new state was born, Khartoum would offer any technical or logistical support and training needed.

"The benefit we get from unity, we can also get it from two separate states."

Al-Bashir's talk was seen by analysts as a sign that the leader had finally accepted what the likely outcome of the referendum would be. He warned against people trying to disorganise the vote, and said they would face the full force of the country's laws, if implicated.

The South Sudan leader Salva Kiir announced, as a sign of reciprocation, that he would expel all Darfur rebels present in the south's territory. The issue of Darfur rebels has been a major sticking point between the north and the south, with Khartoum repeatedly accusing Juba of housing rebels that have been fighting against the central government since 2003.

“No opposition in the north shall take Juba as a base,” Kiir was quoted as saying in the Sudan Tribune.

There are still many issues pending between the two sides, such as border demarcation, oil revenue sharing, citizenship and the fate of the oil-rich Abyei region. At a press conference with Kiir, al-Bashir said both sides were agreed to continue dialogue on these issues and that they would be resolved before the end of the interim period.

If Southern Sudan votes for independence, which they are widely anticipated to do, Africa's newest country will come into being on 9th July 2011, exactly six years after the peace deal took effect.

The voter registration process went relatively smoothly, and nearly four million southerners – as only southerners are eligible to vote – registered. Tens of thousands of southerners living in the north have returned to the south to cast their vote, although their return has caused numerous problems in terms of housing and other resources.

The voting process will start on 9th January and will last for a week. At least sixty per cent of registered voters must take part for the referendum to be valid. This is seen by some sources as the most potentially tricky part of the referendum, as low literacy levels, little history of voting, and poor infrastructure means getting everyone to the polls may be more difficult that achieving the simple majority needed for a verdict either way.

Both sides have agreed to let all Sudanese, but particularly the many southerners living in Khartoum, choose which nationality to take. But al-Bashir's recent announcement that he will enforce a stricter version of Sharia law in the north if the south secedes may prompt even more southerners to leave the north. The returnees will provide an even greater challenge for the new Southern Sudan government.

Sources: BBC News, Sudan Tribune

For more information on Sudan, please see the menas borders website, here.

Sudan round up: UN confirms SAF attack, SSRC in hot water, and Sudanese migrants returned home

A UN investigation confirmed on Monday 13th December, Southern Sudanese claims that warplanes from the northern-controlled Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) had carried out attacks in locations in Southern Sudan near the joint border this month.

The Southern Sudanese government has complained repeatedly in recent months about bombings taking place. The most recent occurred in Timsaha in Western Bahr al-Ghazal province on 8th December, and while noone was killed, the Southern Sudan government has called for a UN commission of inquiry.

A spokesperson for the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), Kouider Zerrouk confirmed the attack: "After verification, it was established by the CJMC members that air attack took place in the vicinity of Timsaha in Western Bahr al-Ghazal and no casualties have been reported."

Southern Sudan said last month that SAF representatives in the ceasefire monitoring body, the Ceasefire Joint Military Committee, which is chaired by the UN, admitted a previous bombing in the area on 14th November. SAF representatives allegedly said that the attack was part of the hunt for Darfur rebels.

Khartoum frequently accuses Southern Sudan publically of supporting and sheltering insurgents from Western Sudan, including Darfur, which borders Western Bahr al-Ghazal. Southern Sudanese officials deny the accusations and say the bombing is meant to increase tension in the north-south Sudan border area in the run up to the January independence referendum.

On 7th December, Southern Sudan minister of information Barnaba Marial Benjamin Bil accused the SAF of working to undermine the referendum by carrying out air attacks in Southern Sudan.

Legal challenge to SSRCOn 8th December, Menas Borders reported that a group of lawyers, backed by the northern ruling party, the National Congress Party (NCP) was seeking to file a lawsuit against the South Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC), arguing that the commission had violated the interim constitution and the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in conducting voter registration.

The lawyers filed their case on Sunday 12th December, and on 14th December, the Sudan Constitutional Court accepted the motion 'in form and content' according to one of the lawyers involved.

Ismail Hassan Haj-Hamad, head of the legal team that filed the challenge said that the next step would be for the court to consider their requests and would order the SSRC to file a response, before issuing a final ruling.

Haj-Hamad was quoted on the Sudanese Media Center (SMC) website saying that they had asked the court to annul all procedures arising out of the voter registration and to immediately halt the work of the SSRC. He said they are requesting the commission to be dissolved and for a new one to be established in line with the Referendum Act of 2009.

The court is expected to rule within three days.

Israel returns Sudanese migrants

In other Sudan related news, Israel confirmed, on Monday 13th December, that it was deporting 150 Sudanese migrants that had entered the country illegally. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has also confirmed that the migrants were being flown back to Sudan, via a third country, and that no coercion was involved.

Israeli officials said over 200 Sudanese had been flown out of the country in recent months after agreeing to return home, but that the operation on Monday was the largest yet.

The Israeli government estimates that over 30,000 Africans have entered the country illegally through its southern border in the last five years. Israel is taking an increasingly tough line with migrants; it is building a barrier along its border with Egypt to try to stop people from crossing illegally and has approved plans to set up a special facility to house those who are detained.

Israel says the migrants, most of whom come from the Horn of Africa, come in search of work, and are threatening local jobs.

Sources: BBC News, Sudan Tribune
For more information on the Sudan, please see menas borders

South Sudan referendum preparation progressing, but Abyei talks break down

A southern Sudanese man living in Darfur registers to vote

The hopes of independence for the southern Sudanese got one step closer on Wednesday 8th December as voter registration closed, signalling the end of one of the biggest obstacles to the referendum taking place early next year.

More than three million southerners have signed up for the 9th January, 2011 poll, which is likely to split Africa's largest country in two, and create the continent's first new country since 1993.

Disputes and delays in registering voters had led many to suggest the vote would have to be postponed, an outcome that would likely please northern leader Omar al-Bashir, but threaten to return the country to violence.

There has been renewed international engagement in recent months, however, and the registration process proceeded smoothly in the semi-autonomous southern region. Despite the registration period, which was meant to end on 1st December, being extended for a week, it looks likely the vote will go ahead on time.

The independence referendum is the outcome of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended a 20 year civil war between the largely Arab north and largely non-Arab south, which claimed more than two million lives.

Though the peace has held since 2005, there is great mistrust between the northern National Congress Party (NCP), headed by President al-Bashir and the southern Sudan's People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). The SPLM have accused the NCP of trying to derail the referendum, and many southerners living outside the south chose not to register for the referendum, fearing that Khartoum would tamper with their votes.

A central issue is revenues from oil, as most of the country's hydrocarbon resources are located in the south. Currently the revenue from Sudan's 500,000 daily barrels of oil is shared between the north and the south, but the north stands to lose up to 75 per cent of its petrodollar income if the south separates.

Many southerners believe that al-Bashir will try to postpone the referendum to maintain its income. The UN and the international community, especially the US, have played a hands-on role in recent months, trying to induce al-Bashir to accept the results of the referendum, through offers of the easing of sanctions and debt relief. The International Crisis Group (ICG) thinktank has said in a recent report that al-Bashir's government was stalling to extract as many concessions from the south and the international community as possible.

Even if the vote does go ahead on schedule, key parts of the CPA, including demarcation of the north-south border and how oil will be managed, has not been decided. The oil issue is particularly tricky because the pipelines from the southern oilfields run through the north.

A number of southern figures backed by the NCP have recently announced that the vote is in violation of the interim constitution and the CPA, and are in the process of finalising a lawsuit against the South Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC). The group has said they will ask for an injunction to prevent the SSRC from proceeding with its preparations for the referendum. If granted, it means that the exercise will have to be delayed until the court rules on the challenge. The lawsuit could be filed as early as Wednesday 8th December, according to the Sudan Tribune.

The NCP has in recent weeks accused the SSRC head Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil of turning a blind eye to 'blatant' violations committed by the SPLM in the registration process. They allege that the SPLM has intimidated potential voters not to register in order to make it likely that the referendum will result in a vote for succession.

Despite these issues, and the very tight deadline, it seems likely that the southern Sudanese will vote on 9th January, 2011. The same cannot be said of the Abyei region, which was due to vote to join either the north or the south on the same day. North-south talks on Abyei broke down in Ethiopia last month, and northern officials have said it would be impossible to hold on the vote on time.

US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley admitted as much on 7th December, when he said "I think we have a recognition that that referendum will not go forward on January 9th, but we continue to encourage the parties to work on a solution to Abyei."

The Abyei referendum commission has yet to be appointed and the parties remain divided on voter eligibility. There is some speculation that the vote will not take place at all in oil-rich Abyei. Rather, there may be a negotiated settlement, for example Abyei going to the south in exchange for something the north wants, according to Zach Vertin of the ICG.

Sources: the Guardian, Sudan Tribune