Sudan referendum result confirmed
Nearly 99% from the south voted for independence, although human rights groups warn against rewarding Bashir
Map: Southern Sudan Photograph: Graphic
The world’s newest country has been born with confirmation that southern Sudan voted almost unanimously for independence from the north.
Results announced in Khartoum showed a near 99% majority in favour of cleaving Africa’s biggest country – a mantle that will pass to Algeria.
The landslide was greeted with dancing and flag-waving in the southern capital, Juba, where people braved blistering heat to celebrate the end of decades of marginalisation. “The results of the referendum mean I am free today,” Abiong Nyok, a housewife, told the BBC. “Now I am a first class citizen in my own country.”
While the relatively peaceful conduct of the vote was welcomed, human rights groups expressed alarm at suggestions that Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, should be “rewarded”. Weekend reports suggested he could receive a year’s reprieve from war crimes charges relating to Darfur after France and the US agreed to consider deferring the international criminal court’s indictment. The US has also signalled it is ready to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and to help ease crippling trade sanctions.
But the campaign group Waging Peace said that in the past week Bashir’s security forces had crushed political protests in the north, resulting in hundreds of arrests and an unconfirmed number of deaths.
Olivia Warham, director of Waging Peace, said: “The final results of southern Sudan’s referendum on secession come as student protesters are beaten and killed on the streets of Khartoum, serving as a reminder that the world cannot see the referendum as a ‘job well done’ and turn away from Sudan.
“The Sudanese youth are demanding the freedoms that their ‘brothers’ in Egypt and Tunisia have claimed, and we should be hearing similar warnings from David Cameron that the Sudanese people too must be allowed to demonstrate without brutality.”-
She added: “Only this week the Darfur genocide continues as President al-Bashir’s troops have swept into camps and villages with armoured attacks and aerial bombardment of unarmed civilians. Coming after the height of the world’s attention on the referendum, al-Bashir must face closer scrutiny on Darfur and his continued human rights abuses or more horrors are inevitable.”
The view was echoed by Human Rights Watch, whose spokesman Tom Porteous said: “The fact the referendum took place in relative peace and security is due to a lot of pressure being put on Bashir, including through the ICC. It shows the process of international justice works. At a time when Bashir is brutally suppressing pro-democracy protests, it would be preposterous that he should be rewarded. I think it’s quite unlikely this initiative will get anywhere.”
Bashir, who campaigned against secession, has surprised many with positive remarks about the south. In an address on state TV, he said: “We accept and welcome these results because they represent the will of the southern people.”
South Sudan’s leader Salva Kiir added to the conciliatory mood by promising to help the north campaign for the cancellation of its crippling debts and the easing of international trade sanctions. “President Bashir and (Bashir’s) National Congress party deserve a reward,” Kiir told a meeting of Sudan’s cabinet in Khartoum.
The formal declaration of independence will be made on 9 July. Southern officials say the question of a name is unresolved but it could become just “South Sudan”.
The north and south ended a 22-year civil war in 2005 that left two million people dead. Both sides have avoided major outbreaks of violence since, but failed to overcome decades of mutual distrust to persuade southerners to embrace unity.
As men drummed and women ululated around him in Juba, Riak Maker, 29, told Reuters: “Today I don’t fear war any more, it is the past … Our leaders have made friends with the north, but for me, I can never forgive them for what I have seen. I don’t hate them now, but I never want to see them again.”
Uncertainties remain over the stability of both territories in the next five months of negotiations over how to share oil revenues and other issues. Gezahegn Kebede, the regional director for the NGO Plan International, said that up to a million people who moved to the north during decades of turmoil could return south, creating shortages of food, shelter and water. The north is mired in its own economic crisis, marked by soaring inflation. The challenges were underlined over the weekend when soldiers in the southern town of Malakal mutinied, killing at least 50 people, after refusing to redeploy north with their weapons as part of preparations for the split.
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