South Sudan voted overwhelmingly to declare its independence in final results of a referendum made public on Monday, opening the door to Africa’s newest state and a fresh period of uncertainty for the fractured region.
A total of 98.83 percent of voters from Sudan’s oil-producing south chose to secede from the north in last month’s referendum, according to a video display of the vote seen by Reuters at the venue of the announcement.
The referendum is the climax of a 2005 north-south peace accord that set out to end Africa’s longest civil war and instil democracy in a country that straddles the continent’s Arab-sub Saharan divide.
Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir earlier said he accepted the result of the vote, allaying fears that the split could reignite conflict over the control of the south’s oil reserves.
“Today we received these results and we accept and welcome these results because they represent the will of the southern people,” President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said in an address on state TV.
Southern officials say the question of a name for the new state is unresolved but it could become just “South Sudan”.
South Sudan’s leader Salva Kiir added to the conciliatory mood by promising he would help Khartoum campaign for the forgiveness of the country’s crippling debts and the easing of international trade sanctions in coming months.
Both sides did avoid major outbreaks of violence over the past five years. But they failed to overcome decades of deep mutual distrust to persuade southerners to embrace unity.
Hundreds of people started gathering in the southern capital Juba on Monday to celebrate the results.
“Today I don’t fear war anymore, 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,” said Riak Maker, 29, as men drummed and women ululated around him.
Civil war
Many southerners see the vote as a chance to end to years of northern repression, which they say stretches back through years of civil war to 19th century raids by slave traders. Bashir, who campaigned against secession, has surprised many commentators with a series of positive remarks about the south in recent weeks.
Washington has signalled it is ready to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after a successful referendum, and help in easing crippling trade sanctions. The West’s hands may be tied by the continuing global uproar over Sudan’s separate Darfur conflict. Bashir is still living under the threat of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court over charges he orchestrated genocide in Darfur.
Deep uncertainties remain over the economic and political stability of both territories over the next five months of intense negotiations over how to share their oil revenues and other unresolved issues.
Landlocked south Sudan is almost entirely dependent on oil revenues and has struggled to find other sources of income to support its economy, weighed down by the huge costs of its army and civil service wage bills.
The north is mired in its own economic crisis, marked by soaring inflation. A series of small street protests, part inspired by uprisings in Tunisia and neighbouring Egypt, has increased political pressure on Khartoum, as has the prospect of losing the south, seen as a matter of shame to some northerners.
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.
Malakal has already seen north-south clashes since the end of the civil war, a conflict that killed 2 million people and destabilised the whole region, flooding it with refugees.
Other burning issues include the division of Sudan’s crippling debt, the position of the north-south border, the ownership of the contested oil-producing Abyei region and the regionally divisive share out of water from the river Nile.
Reuters
