All Signs Lead to Secession in Southern Sudan

While the Sudan has suffered from civil war and bitter division for many decades, the latest political action almost guarantees an absolute divide in the form of secession. Indeed, a week-long referendum poll that ended on Saturday, January 15th, indicated that around 95 percent of the Southern Sudanese population, both domestic and abroad, favored becoming a separate country, according to a recent New York Times article. While tallying votes began last week, the results are not expected to be formally announced until early to mid-February 2011.

Moreover, if secession from the North is the final outcome of the referendum, Southern independence would not take place until the expiration of the "Comprehensive Peace Agreement" on July 9th of this year. The 2005 American-influenced agreement marked the end of the 22-year Second Sudanese Civil War between Northern Arab political leadership, and Animists and Christian populations in the South. Yet, secession will not end strife between the North and the South, and the more complicated schisms regarding religion, ethnicity, and oil. While votes were being cast in the South, rallies were active in the North, with groups shouting anti-government slogans and expressing disillusion over whether fair elections were possible. In addition, as Al Jazeera reports, a secession means that nearly nine million Southern Sudanese would "take with them some 80 per cent of Sudan's oil reserves--leaving the north's 32 million people to go it alone" without the economic security that oil can bring.

To learn more about the current situation in the Sudan, come to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on February 10th, to hear Dr. Andrew Natsios of Georgetown give a talk entitled: "The Future of the Sudan."

To read more:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/201111513594958973.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/world/africa/17sudan.html?scp=2&sq=sudan&st=cse