Voting in Sudan

Staff helps woman vote in al-Jereif, a Khartoum suburb, on January 14, 2011.
Photo Credit: Associated Press

Sudan's referendum on independence kicked off on Jan. 9 with reports of peaceful voting in most parts of the country but with news that violence in the disputed Abyei region had erupted, claiming lives and injuring people after militia attacked a polling station.

Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul of the Episcopal Church of Sudan joined his Roman Catholic counterpart, Archbishop Paulino Lukudu, and other religious leaders as they cast their ballots at 4 p.m. on Jan. 9 at the Hai Jalaba Junior School polling station in Juba, capital city of southern Sudan.

Accompanying the archbishops was a delegation from the All Africa Conference of Churches, which had traveled to Juba as an ecumenical body of referendum observers, according to a Rebecca Coleman, international coordinator in Deng's office.

"On arrival, and with big smiles and waves, the archbishops greeted the crowd of fellow Sudanese citizens who had also turned up to vote," Coleman said, in an e-mail sent to Episcopal News Service. "They proceeded inside the station and after a brief explanation of the process from the polling station officials, they finally voted."

"We have been waiting 55 years for this day. This is the day, this is our time," Deng said, according to Coleman, adding that all Sudanese had now proved to the world that they could reach this day peacefully.

Meanwhile, more than 40 deaths were reported in Abyei following violent clashes between the Misseriya Arab tribe of the north and Ngok Dinka of the south. Abyei is a border region which is holding a separate referendum to determine whether it will belong to the north or the south.

"It is very sad news about Abyei," Bishop Joseph Garang of the Diocese of Renk, which lies on the border between the north and south, told ENS during a Jan. 10 telephone from his home. "The militia arrived well-prepared and attacked a polling center. We are all trying to be peaceful."

In Renk, Garang said the referendum is "going very well" and being conducted peacefully. "It's a celebratory time for everybody," he told ENS, adding that the vast majority of people had already cast their ballots and that he expected voting would conclude in the next day or two. The official final day for voting is Jan. 15.

But Garang's main message was that he believes in the power of prayer. "Everything now is in the control of God. If it were not, there would be much more violence," he said. "God is so good always and people are praying, which is why things are going so smoothly. I believe that God has answered our prayers that the referendum goes forward on time. Now we continue to pray that the voting can finish peacefully."

The referendum is a main provision in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that brought an end to a 21-year civil war that claimed 2 million lives and displaced many more.

The results of the referendum are expected to be announced by Jan. 25 and should the south vote to secede from the north a transitional period will commence, with the official start of a new nation scheduled for July 9.

Millions of refugees are expected to return to the south from the north and the Diocese of Renk is in a strategic position to welcome them. Garang said that Renk's Christians were rejoicing that UNICEF had delivered food and medicine over the weekend to ensure that the region was prepared for the mass migration. He urged ongoing prayers from the international community.

Back in Juba, Episcopal Church missionary Robin Denney explained that the thousands of people who lined up outside polling stations were patient and joyful. "People congratulated each other as they voted," she said in a Jan. 9 e-mail to ENS. "There was a general feeling of solemnity in the air, a state of awe at the historic event we were witnessing and participating in. It is hard to describe the intensity of the overarching feeling of joy and pride that pervaded Juba today."

Among the international observers in Juba were former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn. "Jimmy Carter greeted the archbishops, and all the people gathered there," Denney said. "He thanked the other observers for their presence, and encouraged the voters with confident words and a glowing smile. He spent a few minutes speaking with the archbishops about their experience of the vote, and telling them about his own commitment as a Christian."

"We praise God for this joyful peaceful day, and we continue to pray for peace in all corners of Sudan as these events unfold," Denney added.

From here.

Related reading:  Southern Sudan to Take a Biblical Name?; Prayer Needed in the Midst of Sudan Vote; Who Were the Kushites?

Southern Sudan to Take a Biblical Name?

Cynical as it sounds, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has a point when he says that an independent southern Sudan will be a “failed state” from its inception, though in truth his own misrule and warmongering in the south has caused much of the suffering and destruction there, and hence the southerners’ desire for independence.

A U.S.-backed 2005 peace deal, which ranked among President George W. Bush’s main foreign-policy successes, gave the mainly Christian south a degree of self-government.

“The northerners tried to impose Arabism and sharia across Sudan,” said Father Peter, a parish priest at St. Teresa’s Cathedral in Juba, the region’s capital. “Imagine if we tried to impose canon law on others in Sudan. You cannot govern a country with so many ethnic groups and identities with such a system.”

He said the Catholic Church was targeted by Khartoum throughout the 1983-2005 war.

“We were depicted as agents of the imperialists, or agents of Rome out to undermine Islam,” he said.

However, the Church and affiliated aid organizations and charities helped people suffering from war, disease and hunger, without fear or favor, he said. “Some people saw us for what we really are. We helped other Christians, Muslims, people from traditional beliefs, if they were hungry, thirsty, homeless, hurt. We did not ask for conversion or anything like that in return,” he said.

Now, as he asked during Mass here, he hopes that people vote peacefully, “in an orderly manner, and not to cause trouble.”

On the first day of voting, Sunday, Jan. 9, Father Peter’s church saw a visit from U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Salva Kiir, president of the government of Southern Sudan.

Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has made three trips to Sudan in recent months on behalf of the Obama administration. In an address to the congregation at St. Teresa’s, the former presidential candidate paid tribute to the people of southern Sudan.

Biblical Name?

Southern Sudan’s vote has attracted a foreign press entourage to an area that does not receive much media coverage, despite the history of war, famine, disease and the geopolitical contest being waged between the United States and China, which is a key investor in and buyer of Sudanese oil.

Earlier, at the Mass conducted in Bari, one of many local languages, Western journalists scurried in and out of the church, to the consternation of the nuns working as ushers. “Please, this is the consecration,” one implored, to which the cameraman and reporter responded, as if not hearing her pleas, “Is the president here? When will he be here?”

Father Peter estimates that two-thirds of southern Sudan’s Christians are Catholic, though in an area bigger than France, with no paved roads outside Juba, the infrastructure means that it is difficult to get around and establish exactly how many people live there.

Some of those clamoring for independence seem eager to establish historical and Christian credentials, and names such as Azania and Cushitia have been suggested as possible names for the country. The latter refers to the biblical land of Cush, which is thought to approximate this region.

Asked if he wants to see an independent southern Sudan, Father Peter commented, “This is an opportunity for us to express our will in a way that we have never had before.”

“We have our own culture and history here in the south,” he added. “It is better for us to be on our own.”

From here.

Related reading:  Who Were the Kushites?

Sudan Election Website Blocked

SOURCE: Reporters Without Borders

(RSF/IFEX) - Access to the Sudan Vote Monitor website ( http://www.sudanvotemonitor.com/), a collaborative platform created by Sudanese civil society with the aim of facilitating independent monitoring and reporting of the current elections and their results, has been partially or totally blocked for the past six days.

The elections, which began on 11 April 2010 and which are the first multiparty general elections in Sudan since 1986, have been marked by allegations of irregularities.

"We demand the immediate and total unblocking of this website, which is used by NGOs, journalists and ordinary citizens to report fraud and irregularities in these historic elections," Reporters Without Borders said. "Respect for freedom of expression is an essential condition for the holding of free and fair elections."

The press freedom organisation added: "At time when criticism is coming from all quarters, this act of censorship is reinforcing doubts about the transparency of these elections. It sets a dangerous precedent for other upcoming votes, such as the crucial referendum on self-determination for the south that is supposed to be held by next January."

When connections are working properly, Sudanese citizens are able to send information to the Sudan Vote Monitor by going to the website, or by sending email or SMS messages. Visitors to the site can upload videos and establish links to social networks or to sites such as http://www.sudantribune.com/

According to one of the site's spokesmen, Fareed Zein: "our technology is the closest thing to a real-time snapshot of what is happening on the ground during the elections. Users will have access to up-to-date information including streaming videos from all over Sudan, everywhere from an election centre in Khartoum to a polling station in Juba, or a remote corner of the country."

Operated by various Sudanese NGOs such as Sudan Vote Monitor and the Asmaa Society for Development, Sudan Vote Monitor uses volunteers and open source software provided by Ushahidi ( http://www.ushahidi.com ) that allows distributed data to be gathered and visualized on a map or timeline. Created in 2008 to enable Kenyans to locate post-election violence, the Ushahidi platform has since been used in other countries such as Haiti to assist post-earthquake relief work.

Ushahidi was the recent winner in the Best Webblog category of the Best of the Blogs competition organised by Deutsche Welle in partnership with Reporters Without Borders ( http://www.thebobs.com/).

For more information:
Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
rsf (@) rsf.org
Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
Reporters Without Borders
http://www.rsf.org/

China Praises Sudan Elections

China has praised Sudan's first multi-party elections in 24 years as a "success" a day after the United States criticized the vote as neither free nor fair.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jiang Yu, says a Chinese delegation that monitored Sudan's presidential and parliamentary elections found them to be "smooth and orderly." The polls were held between April 11 to 15.

Speaking Tuesday, Jiang also said the vote will benefit the reconciliation process between Sudan's north and south. He said Beijing will continue to play what he called a "positive and constructive role" in promoting that process.

The U.S. State Department said Monday Sudan's vote did not meet international standards, echoing assessments from election observers of the European Union and the U.S.-based Carter Center.

Early results show Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir heading toward an expected overwhelming victory. His two main challengers of the Umma Party and southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement withdrew ahead of the election, accusing the government of planning to rig it.

China is a major importer of oil from Sudan and a key international ally of the government in Khartoum.
 
From here.

Tsvangirai: No Political Bandaid on Zimbabwe's Wound

Zimbabwe's opposition leader on Wednesday rejected calls to form a national unity government, saying it would not solve the country's crisis after Robert Mugabe's widely condemned one-man election.

Speaking the day after an African Union summit called for a unity government, Morgan Tsvangirai said it would merely accommodate Mugabe after much of the world had labeled his regime illegitimate.

"A government of national unity does not address the problems facing Zimbabwe or acknowledge the will of the Zimbabwean people," Tsvangirai told reporters.

"The resolution does not recognise the illegitimacy of the June 27 election and the fact that most African leaders refused to recognise Mugabe as head of state."

The Movement for Democratic Change leader added that it does not acknowledge "that the MDC, as the winner of the last credible election, on March 29, should be recognised as legitimate government of Zimbabwe."

Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the first round of the presidential election in March, but official vote totals showed him just short of an outright majority.

The opposition leader subsequently pulled out of last Friday's run-off, saying nearly 90 of his supporters had been killed and thousands injured in violence he blamed on pro-Mugabe militia.

His comments Wednesday came after Mugabe's regime hailed the AU resolution, describing it as an echo of the 84-year-old leader's call for dialogue.

"Government is ready for dialogue with whoever, a dialogue for national unity in Zimbabwe," Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said.

Read it all here.