[Montréal, Québec, Canada -4°C] Holding elections anywhere in the world is a logistical challenge. Considering that Sudan has not had elections since 1986, it is Africa’s largest country with vast regions among the least developed on the planet, election logistics are no simple matter.
Census and Voter Registration
A Juba resident makes her registration for the Natonal Elections in April 2010, by Bonifacio Taban.
There are prerequisites to conducting a democratic election that include a census of the population to determine who can vote and in which electoral constituency. The Sudan census has been contested by the SPLM and analysed by others.
Citizens are required to add themselves to the voter list during the voter registration process, followed by a verification of the voter list after its publication. The Carter Center provided observers to provide an impartial assessment of the process. Registration of political party lists with their representatives ended yesterday after a seven-day extension. Continue reading →
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -2°C] I can imagine the emotional depth and confused sense of belonging/alienation that must come from a return visit to one’s homeland ofter a very long and forced exile. At least I think I can. The documentary film by Jen Marlowe, Rebuilding Hope, offers a glimpse of estrangement as it collides with the nostalgia from a childhood torn appart by a 21-year civil war. Chris Koor Garang, Gabriel Bol Deng and Garang Mayuol, the film’s three characters, return home to Southern Sudan to find themselves, to look for their families and to help rebuild their communities now that the war is over. Their expectations clash with the realities on the ground. The following quote introduces their story of return.
We left Sudan because of war and now we are going back for the first time in twenty years.
(source: Map No. 3707 Rev. 10, UNITED NATIONS, Department of Peacekeeping Operations Cartographic Section, April 2007; demarcation line source is US Department of State)
The Sudan has been at war with itself in two successive civil wars since its independence in 1956 from British rule in the southern region and British-administered Egyptian rule in the rest (Anyanya 1: 1956-1972 & Anyanya 2: 1983-2005). Colonial powers may have decided to create Africa’s largest country by maintaining the two administrative regions together but they may just as easily have divided the country along the Jan 1, 1956 Line of Demarcation. Power in a post-colonial Sudan was handed over to the political elite in Khartoum to the detriment of Southern Sudan, Darfur, and other peripheral regions far from the capital. Power, wealth, resources and development have always been tightly controlled by a small click of autocrats based at the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile rivers. This Line of Demarcation is the divide that is now a defining line needing negotiations should Southerners vote for independence in a 2011 self-determination referendum, scheduled in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the second civil war in January 2005. Continue reading →
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -10°C] Sudan is at a crossroads. Again. January 9, 2010 marked the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). The CPA ended 21 years of civil war.
Local drumist, Ajing Deng beats the drum as the dancers follows along. With him is a very young boy who is also caugh up in the action of drum beating. He is at it at a very young age, but its part of the rich tradition of the Sudanese culture.
International focus moved away from Sudan’s long civil war toward the regional rebellion and government’s genocidal reaction that began in Darfur around 2003. Darfur rebels became active with the objective of being included into the peace talks that resulted with the CPA deal. Unfortunately, they were excluded for reasons that are still not clear to me. Continue reading →
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -9°C] Below is South Sudan Info’s first post that was not written in-house, rather it was taken from another source. It is the first article I read that discusses so eloquently the water conundrum in Sudan.
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Perspective: Sudan – Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace
As we approach the January 2011 date for the referendum on the south, and as we see Darfur seemingly in an eerily, but uncertain, peaceful period, we need to look at the water situation in Sudan. Water will be a make or break issue for the peace process in Sudan and in deciding whether the Sudan will move forward in peace and prosperity or more poverty and war. It is a country that went through one of the most brutal civil wars in history. Millions were killed and displaced. Sudan is the country of Darfur, “The lost boys,” and lost generations. One of the driving forces behind the start of the last civil war between the south and the north was the Jonglei Canal. This is an idea that has been around for a very long time. It was to be a canal to bring the water through one of the largest wetlands in the world, The Sudd, more quickly to the north and to Egypt. But those earlier plans did not include much improvement in the lives of the people of the South and along the proposed canal. Dr. John Garang, one of the leaders of the southern rebels wrote his Ph.D. on the Jonglei Canal. The horrors of Darfur can be partly traced back to climate change, rain pattern changes, and water stress. Water is a very big issue in Sudan.
About 80 percent of the people in Sudan find their livelihoods in agriculture. Agriculture is about 40 percent of the country’s GDP and accounts for about 97 percent of the water use. Meanwhile 70 percent of agriculture in Sudan is rain fed. The rest of agriculture can find its water through small traditional spate irrigation and via khors, small mostly hand dug canals, or via huge irrigation projects, such as the Gezira project — which uses about 35 percent of Sudan’s water, and the many giant sugar irrigation schemes. Sudan has the largest area of irrigation in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, but even if this is poorly managed and maintained.
A close up of the fields in the Gezira Scheme, which is one of the largest irrigation projects in the world. It is centered on the Sudanese state of Al Jazirah, just southeast of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers at the city of Khartoum.
UNMAO's Mark Argent and I at mine removal site outside of Juba near E. Rejaf. Notice the MineWolf in upper left of photo. (March 2009)
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -2°C] In a previous post from Juba, Southern Sudan, I wrote about a UNICEF managed and CIDA-funded Mine Risk Education (MRE) programs. I visited program sites where local NGOs taught children and their elders about landmines that remain hidden near their villages. At the time, there were still more known minefields to clear than there were teams trained to clear them so the clearing process would take time. In the meantime, villagers are taught how to recognize landmines or unexploded ordnances and avoid them to remain safe until the dangers are cleared by the United Nations Mine Action Office (UNMAO).
A few days after an MRE visit, Mark Argent (UNMAO) brought me to a different site outside of Juba in E. Rejaf where landmines were actively being cleared by a team of trained mine-removal personnel and a MineWolf machine that, to me, resembles a snow blower. We drove 100 metres past the minefield to a demarkated area adjacent to where landmines were being cleared. This safe area is outlined by a boundary of white-tipped sticks, within which the mine-removal teams prepare their equipment before entering the minefield, take breaks, debrief and where the UN ambulance vehicle parkes at the ready in case of injury.
MineWolf clearing minefiled near Juba, Southern Sudan. (March 2009)
After my debriefing, I was given protection gear to wear (see above photo) that I put on before heading toward the minefield where a team of de-miners were at work. In the back of the minefield, there was a MineWolf actively pounding at the earth, destroying the landmines hidden below the surface.
With minefields still dotting the landscape, farmers are afraid to cultivate the land. When the MineWolf passes over a minefield, it crushes the mines rendering them obsolete. Rarely do the mines explode during Continue reading →
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -11°C] Preliminary voter registration results have been released in a December 13 statement by Al Hadi Muhammad Ahmed, Head of the National Election Commission’s Registration Committee. “The total of the registration up to now is 15,778,154. This percentage is 81% of the targeted number of people who are above 18 years according to the census,” he said.
Sudanese children in Juba promote voter registration by handing out posters (Peter Martel, IRIN)
Although the registration in the south began slowly, according to UNDP staff working with the National Election Commission (NEC), it quickly gained momentum in Southern Sudan. The SPLM-controlled region ended voter registration with a higher than average registration rate of around 86%. Today is the last day of the exhibition and objection process whereby a review of the registry is possible. The registration’s final result will be released by the NEC tomorrow.
This high rate of registration in the south may be due to a political pro-registration campaign from the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) which claims that data from the 2008 census underestimates the number of Southerners. The difference may also reflect a high number of people that returned to South since the census. What is interesting is the high turnout in northern states of Southern Sudan.
Mawien Kuc, National Election Commission Chairperson for Northern Bahr el Ghazal (a Southern Sudan state that borders northern Sudan) told the Sudan Tribune , “We will have over one million people registered and ready to take part in the next national election scheduled to take place in April 2010.” Mawien Kuc said, “I am telling you that we really committed our resources for proper mobilization of our people during registration.”
Sudan finances the majority of the registration process while 43% comes from donors.
To the surprise of researchers, wildlife remains plentiful in southern Sudan's Boma National Park, despite a long civil war, which ended in 2005. Here, a herd of elephants move through a grassland in the park. (Miguel Juarez for NPR)
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -2°C] Before the last civil war started in Sudan in 1983, the country’s protected areas, according to the Wildlife Conservaton Society, “supported some of the most spectacular and important wildlife populations in Africa, and hosted the second largest wildlife migration in the world.” According to their website, “During an aerial survey, more than 1.3 million white-eared kob, tiang (African antelope), and mongalla gazelle are thriving in Southern Sudan.” And apparently, an estimated 8,000 elephants are located within the Jonglei region and particularly in Boma National Park.
This seems like such good news considering that all other information coming from Sudan is about war crimes in Darfur, tribal conflict, a fragile peace agreement and upcoming elections which may or may not be fair and free.
Sudan’s central and southern governments are over-dependent on oil for their respective revenues. Considering most of the developed Continue reading →
National Elections Commission voter registry poster
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -6°C] today is the beginning of the seven-day display of Sudan’s Voter’s Registry. It is a time for people to confirm that their names are on the registry. Not much information about registration results is available nor of the numbers of people who have registered nor percentages of registrants versus eligible voters. This is a time when confusion may emerge while unregistered people check the list and realize that they are not on it and not be able to vote in next year’s April elections.
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -4°C] It’s refreshing to see a major international media network devoting and entire show about the present situation in Sudan four months before the country holds its first multi-party general elections in 24 years.
Al Jazeera’s Inside Story asks if Sudan’s elections can take place on time without a reform to the electoral laws. In this episode, aired yesterday, (Tuesday Dec. 8, 2009) included a discussion with:
Abdelwahab El-Affendi Senior Research Fellow at the University of Westminster Centre for the Study of Democracy who was in London England;
Rabie Abdul Atti, Advisor to Sudan’s Ministry of Information who was in Khartoum, Sudan; and
Ali Al Haj Mohamed, the Deputy Secretary General of Sudan’s Popular Congress Party who was in Bonn, Germany.
A state of mistrust between the partners for peace currently ruling Sudan has put the old North/South rivals back on a collison course. Three senior leaders of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) were briefly held on Monday in a police crackdown against opposition protests which demanded changes to the country’s electoral law.
Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, condemned the arrests, saying they broke the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 that ended a devastating 22-year civil war between North and South. Police had announced that the electoral reform demonstrations would be considered illegal. However, several hundred opposition protesters marched through the streets of Khartoum and Omdurman, waving placards and chanting: “We want our freedom.”
The SPLM and the ruling NCP of Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, have failed to agree on democratic reforms ahead of elections next April.
[Montréal, Québec, Canada -1°C] Today is the last day for voter registration in Sudan’s first multi-party presidential and legislative elections in 24 years to be held in April 2010. Opposition parties called for a rally on Sunday in the country’s capital, Khartoum. The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) issued a statement banning the political rally by opposition groups including the Major Southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). According to a Reuters report in yesterday’s The New York Times, opposition parties”had called for demonstrations outside parliament on Monday to demand a raft of democratic reforms in a rare challenge to the president.” Up to 20 opposition parties participated in the rally, which culminated in the arrest of more than 70 people including senior opposition government officials. “The SPLM and opposition groups are calling on Khartoum to clear a backlog of legislation they say is essential for elections and the roll-out of a faltering peace deal,” continues the Reuters article.
The SPLM’s Arman, left, and Amum, right, after their release in Khartoum [AFP].
Al Jazeera reports that confirm that Pagan Amum, SPLM’s Secretary General, Yassir Arman, Deputy Secretary General of SPLM in the north, and Abbas Gummas, state minister in the coalition government, were arrested during the rally and later released.
In reaction the the arrests, protesters in the Southern towns of Wau and Rumbek set fire to the NCP offices in those towns. A statement issued by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, emphasized the “central importance of political rights and freedoms, especially in the lead-up to elections and referendum.”
Voter registration is now closed and results will eventually be made public to uncertain reaction.
FEATURED VIDEO: Returnees to Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, Southern Sudan
Video taken during a visit to Southern Sudan in March/April 2009. The video shows CIDA-funded development work as managed by the International Organization for Migration to help returnees resettle in their homeland after 21 years of civil war.
[![The SPLMs Arman, left, and Amum, right, after their release in Khartoum [AFP]](http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images//2009/12/7/200912714544336371_5.jpg)
