- Title: UGANDA: Sudanese march to support the secession of South Sudan
- Date: 6th July 2010
- Summary: KAMPALA, UGANDA (JULY 5, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SOUTHERN SUDANESE RUNNING WITH SOUTH SUDAN FLYER'S AND FLAGS WHILE CHANTING PRO-SECESSION SLOGANS THROUGH STREET SOUTHERN SUDANESE CARRYING A REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN BANNER WITH PORTRAIT OF SALVA KIIR, SOUTH SUDAN'S PRESIDENT AND THE LATE JOHN GARANG, FORMER SOUTH SUDAN'S VICE-PRESIDENT SOUTHERN SUDANESE SINGING PRO-SECES
- Embargoed: 21st July 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Uganda
- Country: Uganda
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA2LO4F636HSBAAZ3LP4VWP6V3V
- Story Text: Around 2,000 South Sudanese living in Uganda took to the streets of Kampala on Monday (July 5) for a march supporting the 2011 independence referendum in South Sudan.
Last month, Sudan's parliament set up a long-delayed commission to run a referendum on the independence of its oil-producing south, clearing an obstacle in the country's tortuous peace process.
Southerners are now just over six months away from the scheduled start of a vote on whether their region should separate as an independent state, a plebiscite promised under a 2005 accord that ended more than two decades of civil war with the north, in which as many as 2 million people were killed.
Northern and southern leaders have wrangled for months over the members of the commission which will organise the potentially explosive vote.
"We want separation. We want our destiny and all the southerners who are in the diaspora, whether being in East Africa, in Europe, in USA, in Arab countries. We want then to vote wherever they are. Places must be allocated for them to be registered. We want the referendum committee to be formed immediately," said William Deng, a Southern Sudan protester.
The commission will have to settle the thorny issue of who will be able to vote in the referendum -- the vote is reserved for southerners but there are question marks over southerners living outside the south and members of nomadic tribes who regularly cross the north-south border.
It will also have to register voters across the vast, undeveloped territory ahead of the referendum.
"Let us not compromise international peace, let us give the people of Southern Sudan the right to choose where they belong," said Noel Ajo Julious, a Southern Sudanese student leader participating in the march.
Otherwise any failure to hold a referendum will definitely mean a slide back to war," he warned.
Analysts say southerners overwhelmingly want independence and there is a risk of a return to conflict if the north tries to delay or obstruct the vote to keep control of the south's oil.
Northern and southern leaders are due to start separate negotiations on how they would share out oil wealth and debts after the secession referendum, together with other issues including the nationality of southerners in the north and vice-versa. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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