Juba celebrates as first full referendum results are released

Salva Kiir at the celebrations in Juba

The party has started in south Sudan as the first official announcement of the independence referendum results was made on Sunday 30th January and confirmed what most had suspected: the voters had overwhelmingly endorsed secession.

Priminary results had already secured the vote for secession, but full results show the scale of the victory; according to the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC), 99.57 per cent of voters in the ten states of south Sudan opted to leave the north.

In the north, 57.65 per cent of voters chose separation, with 42 per cent voting for unity. There was a relatively low turnout in the north, with only 69,597 of the 116,857 registered voting.

Southern Sudanese voters in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Australia, Canada, the US and the UK mirrored the vote in the south, with 98.55 per cent choosing separation.

These numbers together produce a figure of 98.83 per cent voting for separation, with over 3.8 million votes for separation compared with only 44,888 for unity.

Juba Celebrations

Hundreds of officials and diplomats gathered in Juba at the grave of rebel leader John Garang for the first official announcement of the results.

John Garang was the main Southern leader during the civil war, and he oversaw the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, which brought the civil war to an end and set the country on the path towards the referendum just witnessed. He died in a plane clash not long after signing the CPA.

South Sudan leader Salva Kiir presided over the events held at the John Garang mausoleum. Reacting to the preliminary figures announced, Kiir remarked “the inhumane treatment southerners were subjected to by the northern regime during the long years of war has clearly manifested itself in this overwhelming vote for separation.”

He extended his gratitude to the SSRC for their tireless work under 'difficult circumstances' to deliver the referendum and results on schedule. He also thanked the people of southern Sudan for keeping their promise to vote for the independence of their own country.

"No one has forced anybody to vote but today we are witnessing a historic moment that has never happened since the creation of South Sudan, with the results today, I congratulate all of you sons and daughters of this region," he said.

He emphasised that an independent south would maintain cordial relations with the north, as well as with its neighbours like Uganda and Kenya.

Kiir said attention should now be focused on the Abyei referendum, popular consultations in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile regions, as well as reolving the conflict in Darfur.

The announcement was met with thousands of southern Sudanese taking to the streets in Juba, the capital of the South, to cheer and dance. The jubilant mood is likely to continue, although Kiir warned people not to remove Sudanese national flags until 9th July, when the flag will be officially lowered in the presence of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir. Al-Bashir would then ceremoniously take the flag back to Khartoum.

The new country has already choosen its flag and its anthem, but its official name has not yet been determined.

Sources: BBC News, Sudan Tribune

For more information on Sudan, see the Menas Borders website, here.

Incoming South Sudan referendum results suggests secession

An SSRC official showing a vote for secession in north Darfur

Southern Sudan's independence referendum came to a close on the evening of 15th January, and early results already coming in suggest the vast majority have voted for independence from Sudan.

The chairman of the Southern Sudanese Referendum Commission (SSRC), Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil said that more than 80per cent of eligible voters in the south had participated, along with 53per cent in the north and 91per cent of voters living in the eight other countries hosting polling stations. 60per cent of registered voters had to cast their votes in order for the poll to be considered valid.

He said the referendum would be considered "a good result by any international standard."

Full results of the poll are not due until next month, but preliminary results are already trickling in from around the 3000 polling stations in Sudan. The Sudan Tribune has reported that at the Ngor voting centre in Torit, in south Sudan's Eastern Equatoria state only seven votes were cast in favour of unity, while 1718 voted for secession.

Results in Juba appear to be similarly one-sided: early results show that of stations already reporting 20,012 people voted for secession, while 270 voted for unity.

Not all results have been so clear, however. In north Sudan's Greater Omdorman area, for example, where 35 polling stations were located, 4838 people voted for secession while 4420 voted for unity.

Polling also took place in eight countries outside of Sudan: Australia, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the UK and the US. Voters in Australia have been given extra time to cast their votes in areas where flooding has hampered the process.

Voters in the UK, the only site in Europe, have reportedly voted 97per cent in favour of secession. Federico Vuni, the SSRC official in charge in London, announced on 16th January that 626 votes were cast in favour of secession, with only 13 for unity.

Similar results were obtained in Canada, where voting took place in Toronto and Calgary, and in Egypt.

US President Barack Obama has welcomed the vote, saying "The sight of so many Sudanese casting their votes in a peaceful and orderly fashion was an inspiration to the world and a tribute to the determination of the people and leaders of south Sudan to forge a better future."

"We urge all parties to continue to urge calm and show restraint as the parties work to complete implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement,” he added.

Washington has promised to remove Sudan from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism by July if it recognises the result of the vote. The US special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration met with foreign minister Ali Karti in Khartoum to discuss with him the future of bilateral relations following the referendum's conclusion.

Karti told reporters after that he hoped for more dialogue on normalising ties and said that more meetings would be held in mid-February to continue discussions. He cautioned, however, that putting new conditions on normalising ties, including Darfur conflict resolution, would not be accepted.

Meanwhile Southern Sudan leader Salva Kiir made his first public address since the vote on Sunday, 16th January, speaking in a Catholic Cathedral in Juba. He urged people to forgive the north for the killings that happened during the civil war that lasted for more than 20 years.

"For our deceased brothers and sisters, particularly those who have fallen during the time of struggle, may God bless them with eternal peace," Kiir said.

"And may we, like Jesus Christ on the cross, forgive those who have forcefully caused their deaths."

An estimated two million people died in the war between Khartoum and rebel groups, most prominently in the south, and millions more were displaced. The independence referendum is the culmination of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in 2005, which ended the civil war.

For more information on the Southern Sudan independence referendum, please see Menas Borders, here.

High voter turnout in Southern Sudan, but violence continues in border region

A policeman in Southern Sudan shows the ink on his finger from voting

Sudan is only half way through the week-long voting period for the Southern Sudan independence referendum, but they are already nearing the 60per cent participation rate necessary for the vote to be considered valid, according to Khartoum's Al Sahafa newspaper.

It is thought that voter turnout in the nouth has reached 60per cent, while voter turnout in the north is at 30per cent and in the eight overseas countries where voting is taking place, turnout has been 63per cent.

As a result, it is almost certain that enough votes will be cast for the referendum result to be accepted. That not enough people would be able to vote was a major concern before voting started on Sunday, 9th January.

While fears of widespread return to violence have proved incorrect, there have been numerous clashes on the north-south border on recent days, and at least 33 people have been killed in the disputed Abyei region alone.

Khartoum has said that the clashes were between rival nomadic and farming tribes over grazing lands, but Juba believes that the Arab Misseriya tribesman, bankrolled by Khartoum, are behind the violence.

"There is always someone behind these things, it is not just a local thing like people are saying," said one senior Southern officer, who refused to be named.

In related news, the UN has acknowledged that it gave helicopter transport to a man wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Southern Kordofan governor Ahmad Mohammad Harun is wanted by the court on 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and rape in the Darfur conflict.

But a UN spokesperson said that Harun was crucial to negotiations between the Misseriya tribes people and Ngok Dinka people of Abyei, and that was why he was given transport.

"Governor Harun was critical to bringing the Misseriya tribal leaders in southern Kordofan to a peace meeting in Abyei to stop further clashes and killings,” according to UN spokesman Martin Nesirky.

Along with the violence in the Abyei region, there has also been 10 deaths in the border area between the north’s Southern Kordofan state and the south’s Bahr al-Ghazal state. Southern internal affairs minister Gier Chuang said the attack in the border region came as a convoy of returnees moving from the north to the south in order to vote was ambushed on Monday, 10th January.

Chuang said that with the exception of these isolated incidents, the vote was progressing peacefully. "Otherwise, the security in all of the states of the south remains normal and the south is on track to achieve the objective it has fought for for so many years," he said.

Violence in Abyei is the most worrying, as the fate of this disputed state is perhaps the issue that is most likely to cause war between the north and what we can expect will be a newly independence south. Abyei was meant to have its own referendum on which country to join, but it has been postponed as crucial sticking points - including the exact border demarcation and how to divide oil revenues - remain unsolved.

Southern Sudan’s leader, Salva Kiir said on Saturday 8th January that returning to war was not an option, and Northern leader Omar Al-Bashir has said he will accept the result of the vote, but there are many issues to be resolved between the two sides before Southern Sudan becomes a new country in July.

In a gesture of goodwill, al-Bashir has proposed to take on all of Sudan’s $38 billion (£24.5 billion) debt if the south declared independence, according to AFP.

Sources: the Telegraph, AFP, the Ghanaian Journal, Menas Associates

For more news and analysis on Sudan, see the Menas Borders website, here.

Border Focus: Sudan

The Southern Sudan Independence Referendum is due to begin on 9th January 2011, but how did Africa’s biggest country come to the point of being split in two?

What is disputed?

Problems in the Sudan stem from poorly thought out colonial borders and policies, and essentially what is disputed is the role of the south and other peripheral areas of the country within the larger Sudanese nation.

The dispute is often portrayed as fight between regions (north vs south) or ethnicities (Arabs vs black Africans), but it perhaps more useful to see it as a fight between the centre and the peripheries, between those holding the power and those marginalised from power.

As a result, while the likely independence of Southern Sudan will solve the marginalisation of the south, it will not solve the problems of other groups in the north who have also been fighting against Khartoum for greater recognition.

What is the history of the dispute?

Even before the Sudan gained independence from Britain in 1956, people in southern Sudan and other areas away from Khartoum felt that they were being excluded from the political process.

The first civil war lasted from 1955-1972 and resulted in the Addis Ababa Accords which granted the south a degree of regional autonomy. This was rescinded in 1983, however, and the rise of Islamist powers in the north resulted in a second civil war breaking out in 1983. The southerners were represented mainly by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), headed by John Garang, but the SPLM also tried to represent other marginalised peoples, especially in the Blue Nile, Nuba Mountain and Darfur areas.

The war ended with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) after 2 million people had been killed and even more displaced. The agreement provided for greater regional representation of some of the marginalised people and gave the SPLM control over governance in the south.

It stipulated a six year interim period in which both sides were committed to working for peace and unity and at the end of the period a referendum was to be held in the south in which the people could vote for unity or secession.

How successful has the CPA been?

The fact that the independence referendum is almost certain to result in southern secession makes it clear that the CPA has not been overly successful. The Power Sharing Protocol established under the CPA, designed to increased southern representation in the central government, and greater local representation in the state governments of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile has been disappointing. Inclusion into the Government of National Unity has not led to the marginalised parties gaining greater influence over state policies. Many complain that the whole government is still under strict National Congress Party (NCP, formerly NIF) control.

Khartoum’s refusal to accept the decision of the Abyei Boundary Commission, and its blocking of the demarcation work of the boundary determined in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague is seen as a sign that little will change for the South if independence is rejected.

Other problems have continued: the Sudanese army did not leave Southern Sudan until 2008, and has been accused of continuing aerial campaigns against the south. The International Crisis Group warned in September 2010 that the border region was dangerous militarised and border demarcation has still not been carried out in many areas.

What is the independence referendum?

The culmination of the CPA is the Southern Sudanese independence referendum, due to be held on 9th January 2011. All Southern Sudanese are eligible to vote, even if they live in the north or abroad. Numerous international countries have made provisions for voting, and the Southern Sudanese government has repatriated tens of thousands of southerners living in the north, amidst fears that they would be intimidated out of voting if they remained in the north.

Almost four million voters have been registered and at least 60 per cent of them must vote during the week long voting period for the referendum to be considered valid. A simple majority either way will decide the result.

The results will probably take some time to come in, and if the vote is in favour of secession, Southern Sudan will become a new country at the end of the interim period on 9th July, 2011.

This gives the two sides six months to deal with residual – and crucially important issues – such as oil revenues, water ownership and border demarcation. There have long been fears that Khartoum would try to interrupt the referendum process or that a vote in favour of independence could lead to war, but al-Bashir’s recent comments that he will accept the verdict either way is positive.

Another crucial issue is to do with the oil-rich border-straddling Abyei region. Abyei residents were meant to have their own referendum on whether to join the north or the south on 9th January, but this will not happen. Instead, its future is likely to be negotiated over by the GoS and SPLM.

What are challenges facing newly independent country?

If, as most analysts expect, Southern Sudan votes to become the first new African country since 1993, it will have huge issues facing it. The second civil war resulted in the deaths of some two million people, and huge numbers of southern residents have been displaced. The south has been ignored and underdeveloped since the colonial period and much of what infrastructure was there was damaged during the civil wars. Persistent food shortages have been an issue (for much of Sudan) since the 1990s, and will likely to continue to be so in the future.

While the south has access to most of the country’s water, it will be a landlocked nation, and will be dependent on the north for many things, not least for the pipelines to carry its oil to markets.

The political class in Juba, while having governed since 2005 is still relatively inexperienced, and corruption is already an issue. The pace of reconstruction has been incredibly slow, and the South has relied heavily in recent years on the World Food Programme, despite some $6 billion in oil revenues coming in.

The new countries leaders will also have a challenge in constructing an idea of national unity and identity. For most of the colonial period their authority has come from their rejection of Khartoum. When they don’t have anyone to blame for the problems any more, unity may be harder to engender.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the south would be better off staying with the north. The support the SPLM has received from its regional neighbours over the last few decades means that it is already to a certain extent integrated into the east African economy, and they will continue to have the goodwill – and more importantly the donor dollars – of the international community for coming years.

For the full history of the dispute, for more analysis, and for Menas Borders' expert report for the SPLM/A in the Abyei Arbitration, please see the full Border Focus, here.