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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Mon Nov 15 2010 - 08:49:51 EST
Southern Sudanese want independence but fear fraud
By Opheera McDoom
Mon Nov 15, 2010 12:58pm GMT
MANDELA CAMP, Sudan Nov 15 (Reuters) - Surrounded by heaps of rubbish with
dirt roads doubling up as open sewers, southern Sudanese living in slums
surrounding Khartoum were in no rush to register for the vote which may
grant them their own nation.
The Jan. 9 plebiscite on southern independence ends a peace process that
began with so much hope in 2005 when Sudan's north and south ended Africa's
longest civil war and embarked on a six year process to make unity an
attractive option to southerners.
"For six years we've been sitting here -- no work, no water, no electricity
-- why would we ever vote for unity?" asked James Duot who fled north to
Khartoum during the war.
It is hard to believe the new tarmac roads and towering gleaming skyscrapers
of Khartoum are just a few kilometres away from the slums that have no
services, no work and where people still live in rickety shacks made of
ripped cloth held up by roughly cut wooden sticks.
Few of the hundreds of thousands of southerners in Khartoum, many of whom
said they wanted their own country, were registering to vote at all on
Monday.
"We just don't trust the process here," said Deng Anok, a Dinka tribal
leader. "It won't be real southerners voting up here," he said.
Southerners registered en masse for April elections hoping to propel the
south's ruling party and former rebels, the Sudan People's Liberation
Movement (SPLM), to power.
But after a wave of irregularities appeared, the SPLM boycotted the vote in
the north, accusing the northern ruling party, their former foes the
National Congress Party, of fraud.
"We think they will fix the referendum here in the north too," said Peter
Dood. "We will go home to register and vote, or not vote at all," he added.
In centres all over Khartoum, many had seen no southerners at all and others
had registered only a handful almost five hours after the process began. By
contrast people were queuing outside registration centres in the southern
capital Juba.
An estimated 2 million southerners in the north of Sudan will be those most
affected by any secession. They worry they could be chased out of the north
and their property confiscated if the south secedes. Many were born there
and others fled the war looking for safety.
The former north-south foes created a national coalition government in 2005
but have bickered over implementing almost every step of the deal, creating
a wall of mistrust which has pushed many to believe unity is no longer an
option.
One SPLM official who declined to be named said they had encouraged anyone
outside the south not to register and the message appeared to be getting
through.
"We told southerners not to register (here) so that the NCP doesn't fix the
referendum result," he said.
The message was also to prevent an anomaly which could invalidate the
referendum. More than 60 percent of those registered must vote for the
result to be valid.
Secession would split Africa's largest country in two. Much of Sudan's
modest 470,000 barrels per day of oil lies in the south.
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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