20101010
africanews

Nairobi — One of the most important votes in post-independence African history is less than 100 days away.

But there is still no consensus whether the outcome of the January 9 vote on self-determination in southern Sudan will result in the resumption of hostilities between the North and the South or signal the birth of Africa's newest nation.

Tensions in Sudan, where a civil war claimed about two million lives before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, are at the highest level.

Southerners are expected to vote on whether to secede or maintain the unity of Africa's largest country in a referendum guaranteed under the terms of the CPA deal which ended the nation's decades-long civil war.

In interviews in Juba last week, most leaders in the South sounded a belligerent note, warning that any delay in holding the vote would almost certainly lead to bloody conflict.

"We do not like war," said David Amuor Majur, secretary-general of the South Sudan Youth Forum for Referendum, whose organisation is campaigning for a vote for independence.

"Every war that has been fought in the South for the last half a century has been exported from Khartoum. What we are saying is that the vote for self-determination is a hard-won, non-negotiable right which we are ready to fight to preserve."

Preparations for the referendum are well behind schedule. The president of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir has blamed President Omar al-Bashir's ruling National Congress Party of sabotaging the work of the referendum commission charged with preparing for the vote.

Mr Bashir's government has. in turn, blamed Mr Kiir's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) for breaching the terms of the CPA and openly agitating for independence.

In the last few weeks, multiple diplomatic efforts have been launched to avert a return to war. President Barak Obama entered the fray during the United Nations summit in New York last month, saying the United States would be actively engaged in ensuring the referendum takes place in a transparent manner.

The 15 UN Security Council ambassadors were in Juba last week where they met Mr Kiir and other senior SPLM figures before moving on to Khartoum for talks with Northern officials.

Kenya's Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Thuita Mwangi said a round table meeting of all parties will be held in Nairobi in November to discuss contentious pre- and post-referendum issues.

The growing international concern over the situation in Sudan reflects the high stakes. The Southerners have been agitating for independence since the British and Egyptians abruptly handed power to the mainly Muslim Arab rulers in Khartoum in 1956.

Southerners, mainly Christian and animist, assert they are culturally distinct from the Northern population. Their fight for independence came at the cost of an estimated two million lives in one of the bloodiest conflicts since the end of the Second World War.

The CPA gave the South limited autonomy until January 2011 when its citizens will vote whether to maintain unity or separate from the North. A separate vote will be held in the oil-rich and fertile Abyei which straddles the two regions.

Last Friday, Mr Kiir urged the UN to deploy troops to the border region amid accusations that both sides have sent thousands of troops to the region in case war breaks out.

The twin referenda will be watched especially closely in Kenya and Uganda, two countries that have made considerable investments in the South.

Financial analyst Aly Khan Satchu said the element of risk cuts both ways. "There is clearly still considerable uncertainty around the referendum. People are not sure what the North wants and whether they will give up the South easily. But there is still scope for a deal that would see the North save face and allow the South to achieve independence."

Evidence of Kenyan investment in the South is everywhere with local banks, insurance firms and airlines having established a foothold across the region.

"The massive foreign direct investment into the country is redefining the Kenyan national interest there," Mr Satchu said. "There are numerous actors in the area, including civil servants helping to build local capacity, individual entrepreneurs and corporate organisations."

But the question of whether the referendum will take place peacefully looms large. International Crisis Group's Fouad Hikmat, one of the most respected Sudan analysts in the region, says neither side is ready for war due to the various vulnerabilities in the administrations in Khartoum and Juba.

Unresolved questions

But he said the unresolved questions, such as border demarcation, citizenship and the fate of the Abyei region could easily trigger conflict. "It is like a heavily inflated balloon. A little prick can cause a big explosion. But war is certainly avoidable."

Mr Hikmat said most analysts have proposed a set of steps on which diplomats can focus to defuse the situation. He said both the North and the South should consider the possibility of political secession but agree on a post-referendum deal that retains some elements of economic and social integration to deal with the fears of groups such as pastoral communities that graze their cattle on both sides of the border.

This would also address the question of citizenship, considering the large number of Northerners and Southerners that live on both sides of the 1956 border.

Mr Hikmat said both sides should hold constitutional review conferences that would serve to develop new sets of laws to govern them. These meetings, involving all political forces, he said, would also serve to thrash out agreements to resolve the Darfur crisis and consolidate the peace agreements in East Sudan.

He said emphasis should also be laid on ensuring that justice is "part and parcel of conflict resolution in Darfur" and that the two main parties should lay strategies for national reconciliation after the referendum.