SUDAN: South Sudan President Salva Kiir accuses north of dragging feet on demarcating crucial north-south border ahead of election

Record ID: 345845

  • Title: SUDAN: South Sudan President Salva Kiir accuses north of dragging feet on demarcating crucial north-south border ahead of election
  • Date: 7th April 2010
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) SCHOOL TEACHER, JASON BURRI SAYING: "You know the majority of southerners are not educated so going around 12 ballot papers will be very difficult." VARIOUS OF SUPPORTERS WAVING FLAGS, CHANTING AND SINGING (SOUNDBITE) (English) STATE ASSEMBLY CANDIDATE, PRISCILLA PAUL, SAYING: "Yes there are still some people they don't understand this system because they are confused."
  • Embargoed: 22nd April 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sudan
  • Country: Sudan
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAD3JMYWCPII52CZ33SF9QSE9LH
  • Story Text: South Sudan's President Salva Kiir accused northern Sudan on Tuesday (March 6) of deliberately dragging their feet on demarcating a crucial north-south border.
    "The peace agreement that we have signed with the NCP has not been fully implemented. Today there are four aspects that have not been implemented, the north-south border is not demarcated. The reason it is not demarcated is because of the oil and the north wants to take that oil. They want also to confiscate the agricultural land we have so it becomes their land," Kiir told supporters during an election rally in south Sudan's Lakes State.
    The border is a long delayed but important part of a peace deal signed between the north and south in 2005 that ended more than 20 years of brutal war. The accord also set up the south, with its own government and a share of Sudan's oil wealth.
    The statement comes at a time of much sensitivity between the two former foes as elections are set to begin on Sunday (April 11) after a confusing week of dramatic pull-outs. The main southern political party, Kiir's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), dropped their candidate for Sudan's presidency, causing much confusion and consternation last week.
    Kiir is running for the southern presidential seat again. He only has one other contender and analysts believe he is likely to win. These elections are Sudan's first multi-party ballot for 24 years.
    Hundreds of people from the small settlement of Yirol appeared on their dusty marram airstrip to welcome the President. Kiir promised more roads, better water, education and health services to the people of Lakes State and also introduced other members from the SPLM to the large crowd of enthusiastic followers.
    He also said that northern Sudan's leading National Congress Party, the NCP, is also purposefully stalling on crucial un-implemented parts of the peace deal.
    He also accused the northern party of dragging their feet on the creation of a commission that will organise south Sudan's long-awaited referendum in January in which southerners will vote to either separate from northern Sudan or remain united.
    Most believe that the south will choose to secede. The NCP is also failing to do its share of work in creating another commission for the Abyei area, wanted by both north and south, where people will choose on the same day as the southern referendum on whether they want to be part of the north or south, Kiir said.
    Meanwhile, the elections in south Sudan face enormous challenges. Most southerners will be voting for the first time in their lives and will face an extremely complex set of votes that use several different electoral systems.
    "You know the majority of southerners are not educated so going around 12 ballot papers will be very difficult," teacher Jason Burri said.
    "Yes there are still some people they don't understand this system because they are confused," a candidate for the SPLM's women list, Priscilla Paul, said.
    But for many in the south, the most important thing is to get through the elections so that the long-awaited referendum can take place.
    "The elections must be in place so we can get a quick referendum and so we are given the right of south Sudan," another SPLM women's list candidate, Monica Nychut, said.
    The decision by the ex-rebel SPLM, to withdraw from the elections threw the opposition into disarray with little consensus arising on whether to join the boycott and to what degree.
    Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir wants to win the elections to legitimise his rule, in defiance of an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest for war crimes in Darfur, after a brutal counter-insurgency campaign begun in 2003.
    The United Nations estimates 300,000 died in the humanitarian crisis sparked by more than 2.5 million fled their homes after mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms accusing central government of neglect.
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