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.

The signing of the CPA initiated a six-year interim period, during which time the central government in Khartoum and the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan are to pass laws that will allow the two regions to coexist. Border issues are to be resolved, oil wealth distribution is to be made equitable, cencus and election legislation is to be passed. According to the CPA, if the two regions are still unable to coexist after the six years, then in 2011, Southern Sudan will hold a self-determination referendum to decide whether or not for independence, creating Africca’s newest independent state.

The 5th anniversary and Sudan’s first democratic, multiparty elections to be held in April 2010 are drawing more attention to the situation in all of Sudan. The myopic, but still important, focus on Darfur is being brought into the fold of the larger and more precarious situation in Southern Sudan, where much of the civil war was fought. If war returns to Southern Sudan, it will consume all of Sudan and the larger region.

One of the symptoms of the resurgent interest in maintaining the CPA in Sudan is Sudan 365, A Beat for Peace. Musicians from around the world (Sudan, UK, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Ireland, Egypt, Rwanda, Spain, Russia, USA, India, and elsewhere), take a video of themselves playing (mostly) percussian instruments that have been edited together in the video below as a single music video. Known artists like Radiohead’s Philip Selway, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason, Snow Patrol’s Jonny Quinn, the Police’s Stewart Copeland, have participated.

If you want to add your beat to the melée, you just need to upload your peace beat. It’s time to get the drums out and call your friends!

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 oil fields straddle the as-yet-undemarkated border that situates the south, oil will play an important role in the country’s ability to hold on to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and avoid a third civil war.

Within the volatile political context that is Sudan, there has been little to no reporting on the country’s natural environment and the potential for wildlife reserves and national parks to become an important source of revenue for the South. Tanzania’s revenues from safari tourism is their second largest source of foreign currency after agricultural exports. And it is steadily growing.

The south is now seriously underdeveloped and lacking in general infrastructure and its primary foreing trade is done in oil, which is managed by the Central govenrment in Khartoum who shares the revenues with the government of Southern Sudan. The South has other exports like gum Africa to gain some foreign currency for its own development but it needs more revenue streams and with greater dieversity.

Of course it will take a while to develop the infrastructure for safari tourism but the southeastern region of Southern Sudan seems apt to offer an important future source of revenue that can rival oil exports.

Considering that wildlife tourism could be added to the important oil export to earn foreign capital, the region’s national parks and wildlife reserves could provide a genuine revenue stream for Southern Sudan’s economy that would diminish oil dependence.

Sudan Oil / Wildlife Overlay (source: Wildlife Conservation Society and European Coalition on Oil in Sudan, 2007)

How will an oil economy adapt to an emerging wildlife conservation economy? Just how do the two share the land? I thought it would be interesting to visualize how the two might complement or conflict with one another. Wildlife conservation and resource exploitation do not make good bedfellows and are unable to share the territory.

The map to the left is an overlay of two maps: one of national parks and wildlife reserves taken from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the other is of oil concessions and exploited oil fields taken from the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan.

It would seem that the Zeraf Reserve and the proposed extension are located in Blocks A, 5A and 5B, three very active regions of oil exploration and exploitation, particularly Block 5A.

The Southern National Park seems to be outside any region of exploration. The Boma National Park as well as the proposed Bandingallo National Park are within Block B at the fringes of oil exploration but not at risk of exploitation and future exploitation.

How these two ‘resources’ will coexist has yet to be seen. Hopefully, the Southern Sudanese will recognize the long-term benefits of protecting the land and its wildlife for their own benefit and the benefit of wildlife enthusiasts rather than succumb to foreign lust for oil. If the so-called ‘international community’ is genuinely interested in helping Sudan hold on to its fragile peace and preventing a third civil war in the Sudan, it needs to begin washing the bloody oil of its hands and help build a local industry that brings money into the country rather than take resources out.

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Further reading:

- After Sudan’s Civil War: Where the Wild Things Are. NPR’s WBUR Radio.

- Fragile peace may unravel in Southern Sudan. CNN

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Below is a video from CNN that give us a first-time glimpse of oil well pollution in Southern Sudan.

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.

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.

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Further Reading:

- Sudan Arrests SPLM SG Pagan Amum and Yasir Arman (Sudan Tribune)

- Sudanese Government Cracks Down on Opposition (Enough Project)

- UN Envoy Calls On Parties to Abide by Peace Pact in Wake of Political Violence (UN News Service)

- Sudanese Regime Crackdown Requires International Crackdown on Sudanese Regime (The Huffington Post)

The material presented in the report comes from workshops in Malakal, Juba, Bor and Khartoum in May and June 2009, just after my own visit to Southern Sudan, although I went to Juba, Wau, Aweil and Abyei. Information comes from input during the workshops by local and international NGOs, faith group, politicians, government officials, civil society organizations and “others”.

The report defines four scenarios based on two uncertainties: 1) whether the country will be at war or at peace, and 2) whether the country will remain united or whether the south will secede from the north (see diagram below).

FOUR (five) SCENARIOS:

In the document’s executive summary, five main findings arose from the exercise of creating these four scenarios:

1. “It may not be wise to direct all long-term attention to developmental rather than humanitarian assistance.” because, the report stipulates, even in the best scenario (self-professed as the ‘CPA Hurray!’ scenario) “small-scale conflicts are still likely.”;
2. The ‘CPA Hurray!’ scenario is worth pursuing as a strategy because it “promises a less violent future.” But, according to this report (and this recent report), it “appears less plausible”.
3. The materialization of “free and fair elections is essential, not only to guarantee peace, but as the only peaceful way to bring about unity,” which according to September 2007 focus group survey, A Place to Call Their Own, as well as the report’s own southern focus groups, most Southerners do not want.
4. “Continuous outside mediation and pressure is needed to get all parties to implement the CPA and to make unity attractive.” It continues to explain that the “time horizon” needs more flexibility and needs to be extended beyond 2012. The need to talk about a “post-2012 period” is paramount particularly “about what unity might look like” to make the pre-2012 period “more manageable.”
5. “The critical difference between a successful and unsuccessful outcome will be to a large extent determined by whether the South has a stable, cooperative and confident leadership.”

The interesting future histories in Sudan between 2009-2012, created by the report’s author, lead to each of the four post-2012 Sudan scenarios are followed by the suggestions and policy options for the international community. They are well researched and seem to portray the current situation in Southern Sudan. Future histories are then formulated to create each of the four scenarios.

Based on the five main findings outlined above, the report seems to favour scenario #3, which represents the point of view of Northern focus groups, who view ‘CPA Hurray!’ as “a romantic but possible scenario.” The members of Southern focus groups expressed a belief that “a renewed war between the North and the South next to unavoidable” so scenarios one and two were most likely to them.

Possibly the most interesting element in the report is the identification by the Northern focus groups of a fifth “Stagnation’ scenario within the ‘no war’ and ‘united’ quadrant of the diagram. Based on a third uncertainty, which is given little attention these days, is the possibility that neither the 2010 elections nor the 2011 referendum will take place. They believe that “because elites in power in Khartoum and Juba have little to gain from [a election and a referendum], and prefer the present situation to continue.” This status quo situation would allow Sudanese and international actors to “muddle through, continuing to ‘band aid’ the Sudanese system together.”

According to a recent Inter Press Service (IPS) article, SOUTH SUDAN: Complicating the Vote for Women, by Ruth Omukhango writes:

Before Sudan went to war in 1983, women were not allowed to vie for political office or to vote. Next April, they will be asked to cast their ballots in a contest in which 25 per cent of seats have been reserved for women.

The article sites literacy issues, where most women can neither read nor write; the need for intensive civic eduction to allow women to properly participate in elections, and; the confusion about the conditions of nomination and representation and the cost of submitting a candidate as major obstacles.

The first issue of South Sudan Women’s Agenda, published in August 2009, focuses on the elections challenges facing women in South Sudan. One entry in the  magazine, produces by African Woman and Child Features Service (AWC) in partnership with United Nations Development Fund for Women in Sudan UNIFEM Sudan is the following manifesto.

Additional readings include:

- South Sudan Women Threaten to not Vote for Male Contenders (Sudan Tribune; 10 January 2009);

- Good Governance and Equity in Political Participation in Southern Sudan (UNDP, Sudan);

- Women in Southern Sudan declare readiness in upcoming national elections (The New Sudan Vision)

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THE JUBA DECLARATION BY SOUTHERN SUDAN WOMEN IN POLITICAL PARTIES

On The Women’s Common Agenda For The 2010 Elections

We, the women from the political parties in Southern Sudan, participating in the Conference for Southern Sudan Women in Political Parties to Develop a Women’s Common Agenda for the Elections, which took place in Juba from July 17 to 19,
2009, comprising representatives of the Government, Political Parties and Parliamentarians:
Strongly believe in women working together across party lines;
Affirm that unity of purpose is the foundation of equity and equality;
Also affirm that the women of Southern Sudan are renowned for their active participation in the pursuit of peace and good governance;
Further affirm that gender issues cannot be divorced from the political, social,
cultural, developmental, economic and security considerations in Southern Sudan.
Note that women in Southern Sudan have limited access to political party
leadership and decision-making, the media, education, economic empowerment, law, security, health, which has compromised women’s effective participation in national leadership,
Concerned about the rights and dignity of women, insecurity and the rule of law
in Southern Sudan and the environment in which the General Election will be held
State that it is in this context that women now seek greater representation and
participation in party politics and national leadership,
Affirm our support for all the outcomes of this conference with a view to
strengthening democracy through women’s greater participation at all levels of leadership as stated in the 25 percent principle,
Appreciate the role played by the Government of Southern Sudan and the
international community in supporting efforts to boost the role of women in politics and transformational leadership and drawing attention to the need to involve women in all stages of the election process and in the implementation of the National Elections Act 2008,

NOW WISH to call upon the National Electoral Commission, Political Parties Affairs Council, Political Parties in Southern Sudan and the media to address the following recommendations:

1. EFFECTIVE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN POLITICAL PARTIES

1. Raise women’s image and visibility within their parties by:
1.1 Increasing the number of women in political parties through intensive
women recruitment campaigns;
1.2 Developing their political knowledge and leadership skills;
1.3 Provision of financial support to women’s leagues and groups

2. Build the capacity of all party membership to understand and appreciate
gender issues;
3. Prepare and conduct democratic and transparent candidate selection
processes through:
3.1 include women in the selection teams and allow the women leagues to
monitor the candidate selection processes;
3.2 widely disseminate candidate selection rules;
3.3 instituting a mechanism whereby at least 10% of the candidates on the
party list are women and nomination of candidates for geographical
constituency seats;
3.4 commit and promote fair competition during internal elections;
3.5 establish an independent monitoring system for internal elections;
4. Party should support to women candidates through:
4.1 Provision of material and financial support;
1.2 Visibly support women candidates
1.3 Set up a women election basket

2.0 DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER-SENSITIVE MANIFESTOS

Political parties should ensure that the following gender specific issues are
addressed in their manifestos:
1. Zero-tolerance for corruption
2. Universal primary health care with emphasis on reproductive health
3. Continuous HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns coupled with accessible VCT
(Voluntary Counseling and Testing) Centers for the youth and married couples throughout Southern Sudan
4. Mass adult literacy campaign up to the community level
5. Free education for girls and construct at least one girls’ only secondary
boarding school in each state in Southern Sudan;
6. Clean and safe water at community level;
7. Micro enterprises and a micro enterprise fund for economic empowerment of
women at the grassroots / community level;
8. A policy to address gender based violence by:
8.1 Institutionalize special protection units at the police stations;
8.2 Support and medical care to survivors;
8.3 Rehabilitation and/or stiff penalty to perpetrators
9. Establish equal opportunities body to monitor:
9.1 Implementation of the Bill of rights in the Interim Constitution of
Southern Sudan;
9.2 Ratification of the international conventions that protect the rights of
women;
9.3 Implementation of gender and related policies
9.4 Implementation of the land policy
10. Establish schools for children with disabilities at county level
11. Establish mental health centers for treatment and rehabilitation
12. Inclusive and transparent government

3.0 GENDER SENSITIVE MEDIA

1. Work with women leagues and candidates to promote their visibility
through:
1.1 Provision of media space in electronic and print media;
1.2 Organizing media listening groups
1.3 Include gender sensitive training skills in the media training curricula
2. Support dissemination of gender sensitive messages and materials through:
2.1 Create awareness and appreciation among voters on the importance
and benefits of women candidates;

3. Give media space to women candidates during election campaigns to gain
visibility among voters;
4. Institute a monitoring mechanism to ensure that all candidates and political
parties have equal access to media;
5. Media should be neutral not biased towards any party or any candidate.

4.0 PREVENTION OF ELECTION VIOLENCE

1. Political party leaders should commit to any code of conduct that is
developed to prevent election related violence
2. Political Parties Affairs Council (PPAC) should be in position to withdraw
registration of any party that involves in election violence
3. Political parties should include discussion on prevention of campaign and
election related violence in their South – South dialogues
4. All political parties should issue statements on how they are to conduct
transparent campaigns
5. Media should refrain from fueling violence through:
5.1 not disseminating hate speech and inflammatory remarks
5.2 not engage in sensational reporting of contentious issues
6. All political party leaders should encourage party members not to engage in
violent activities
7. Women candidates should be united and present themselves to have
peaceful elections and should come out with a statement on violence-free
elections
8. Women should commit themselves to respecting and abiding by election
guidelines and the electoral law
9. Women commit themselves to influencing their respective parties to commit
themselves to a violence-free election
10. Media should sensitize the public on free and fair elections and how to
prevent and report election violence
11. Media should be also play a monitoring role to bring to attention of
concerned authorities about potential for violence and malpractices
12. NEC should raise awareness of the public to prevent corruption, illegal
practices and election offences
13. NEC should create awareness among all political party leaders on their
obligations under the electoral law and the penalty for non adherence
14. NEC should conduct its affairs in an impartial, transparent and neutral
manner
15. Government must take the responsibility of providing security during
elections, especially for women candidates, and a special police unit should
be trained to deal with election violence.

5.0 GENDER-SENSITIVE ELECTIONS GUIDELINES

1. NEC should provide an easy mechanism for identifying voters in rural areas
for registration by involving Chiefs or the village chairpersons.
2. Voter registration centers should be within easy reach and easily
identifiable areas.
3. NEC should make it clear that although women have 25% seats, they are also
eligible to be nominated for other positions such as President, Governor,
party list, and the constituency seats.
4. NEC should set-up a gender responsive voter education and disseminate
information concerning elections.
5. NEC should issue strong guidelines against violence in all election processes
6. NEC should invite foreign and local observers during the registration,
campaign, voting and counting of votes and announcing of results processes
7. In case government funding, NEC should ensure equal financial support for
both male and female at all the levels.
8. PPAC should reject any party list or constituency candidate lists which do not
include women
9. NEC should commit to provide financial support for women candidates
competing for constituency seats

6.0 CAPACITY BUILDING FOR FEMALE CANDIDATES

Capacity building for women candidates is imperative to their participation and
success. The following areas have been identified as critical action areas for
women, donors, government and civil society organizations:
1. Training areas:
1.1 Elections Act provisions and electoral procedures
1.2 confidence building
1.3 public speaking
1.4 communication skills and public relations
1.5 Local administration structure and native administration.
1.6 proposal writing
1.7 fund raising for women candidates
1.8 campaign and message development skills
1.9 political skills
1.10 networking skills
2. Institute a fund to train women candidates
3. Women should work at increasing their visibility within their political parties
and among voters
4. Women should sensitize other women and encourage women at the lower
levels to join political parties
5. Women should develop networking skills so as to appreciate the benefits of
networking with women groups and civil society organizations within the
community
6. Formation of a “Women in Political Parties forum” as a learning platform for
political, voter and civic education.
7. Develop a relationship with the media by understanding how it works and
being pro-active by taking advantage of media houses
8. Establish networks and regular dialogue with association of media women in
Sudan
9. Learn the workings and take advantage of media outlets and utilize
alternative media such as email; SMS, radio listening groups for women, etc
10. Develop a communication strategy to address election related issues using
the media

Southern Sudan’s right to a self-determination referendum, scheduled for 2011 after the country’s six-year interim period, is the “bedrock principle” which allowed for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the 21-year civil war between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA/M).

According to Reeve’s report, “an abundance of evidence now suggests that the ruling National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) is intent on undermining or completely forestalling this critical electoral process.” The results will play a crucial role in future legislation that will determine whether or not the south will be able to hold a referendum, how the referendum decision will be measured (by what question) and what the requirements for a self-determination decision will be. This legislation or “Southern Self-Determination Act” was mandated within the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and was supposed to be enacted in 2007. Successive delays in legislating the Act may lead the Khartoum government to postpone the referendum to a later date (as we have seen with the national elections whose date was pushed back twice before settling on April 2010), which according to Reeves, may “trigger full-scale war.”

Some tactics to render independence extremely difficult to attain in a referendum is the NIF/NCP’s insistence that only a minimum 75%  vote requirement is acceptable for secession. Although support for self-determination in the South is over 90%, according to the National Democratic Institute.

According to The Nation article referred to by Reeves, the NIF/NCP also now wants the Referendum Commission’s office to be in Khartoum rather than what the CPA stipulates it to be in Juba. The CPA specifies that the Commission is to have nine members (three from the Government of National Unity, headed by NIF/NCP and six from the Government of Southern Sudan, headed by the SPLM). Khartoum now wants fifteen members with ten from the Government of National Unity. Although the CPA lays out that security forces responsible for monitoring the referendum vote is to be the SPLA and Joint Integrated Forces, the NIF/NCP now wants the Sudan Armed Forces brought to the south for that purpose.

The foundations of a school being built in Mayen Ulem, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan (March 2009)

The two sides don’t agree on the contents of the ballots. Khartoum’s governing NIF/NCP party wants two issues listed on the ballot with voters choosing between unity and secession. The south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement prefers a single-issue ballot with one question and the option of choosing ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Considering the average 24% literacy rate in the South (37% for men and 12% for women. details) it would seem important to simplify the ballot as much as possible to accurately reflect the choice of the population in the referendum decision.

In Québec, we have had two of our own self-determination referendums  (1980 and 1995) which included a debate as to the question on the ballot from which a decision would be made. The 1980 ballot proposed to negotiate ’sovereignty-association’ while the 1995 ballot proposed ’sovereignty’. The questions asked on each of the two ballots were:

1980: “The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad — in other words, sovereignty — and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?”

1995: “Do you agree that Québec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Québec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?”

If complex questions like these are proposed to the people of Southern Sudan in their own self-determination referendum, most of the population would be unable to understand the question and therefore unable to properly decide on an answer.

Reeve’s article continues with evidence that “sophisticated firearms” from Khartoum are being sent to the south and may be exacerbating conflicts in Jonglei State. They are also providing them to the “maniacal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), originally from northern Uganda and now operating in northern Democratic republic of Congo and in Western Equatoria, Southern Sudan. He discusses the possibility of an SPLM unilateral declaration of Southern independence and the consequences of such a decision.

Reeves ends his report with a review of the US Special Envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, describing him as seeming “deeply naïve—or even more deeply disingenuous.” To read the entire report visit his website.

Since the beginning of October, I’ve come to Le Cheval Blanc on Wednesday evenings to initiate a ritual meeting place among friends to establish tradition where non existed before. A recurrent gathering—without notice—to linger over a pint of locally brewed beer and discuss our respective projects and catch up on each other’s lives. Come after 17h00 and, barring lateness, I will be there. In my absence, carry on without me.

This ‘tradition’ is important now because I’m feeling somewhat shaky these days, having left much of my former professional self behind to begin anew. Bye bye book publishing. It was nice knowing you. We shared ten great years. But without the meetings, editorial schedules and launch deadlines, I find myself with blank agenda pages and insufficient diversity on any given day. Since I closed the bed & breakfast 77 days ago, the early breakfasts, dirty laundry and evening check-ins cease to guide my days with their punctual familiarity. And now I’ve moved to another part of town. Terra incognita. A potentially dreadful place if one is captivated by fear of the unknown. A place of potential crisis if left untethered. A panic attack circling like a pack of hyenas. A pocketed paper bag in the onslaught of hyperventilation. Luckily for me I thrive on change but it sometimes takes a bit of adjustment.

I don’t fear the horizon ahead of me, of falling of the edge of the world. I enjoy facing the open ocean imagining the current taking me toward the rest of the world. These are moments when everything is possible. It’s the potential of it all that makes new projects worth pursuing. And it’s precisely this potential that leads me to Africa or more precisely to Sudan, a place devastated by post-colonial war. I read in this morning’s newspaper that just yesterday, at the National Forum on Darfur, held in Khartoum, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir called for a ceasefire in Darfur and the immediate disarmament of the Janjaweed militias 1, 2, 3, 4. Maybe the western region of Sudan will grasp the tenuous peace that continues in South Sudan, where I’m headed at the end of January or early February.

South Sudan may be one of the more remote and underdeveloped regions of the world but it is on the cusp of something new. Something great. Great because it has been at peace with the central Sudanese government since 2005, after two debilitating civil wars (1956-1972 & 1983-2005). Great because four million refugees are returning to their traditional homeland. Great because schools are being built to educate the girls and boys who have now experienced peace for the first time. Great because elections are coming in 2009 and the population is learning about democratic processes by state-sponsored, privately owned, and community media. Great because in 2011, the South can hold a referendum( as mandadted in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the northern Government of Sudan (GoS) and the southern-based Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement) that can give the South independence from the rest of Sudan. I’m not adverse to separation but I’d like to ask the South Sudanese what they want in their context.

Everyone knows that holding elections or referenda after decades of war can be volatile in the best of times, but its potential for holding onto the peace is palpable. I want to be there, as it unfolds, to witness, capture and understand this potential.

South Sudan, as a political entity in and of itself, is without tradition. Its existence is new, since the 2005 peace agreement. I am not referring to the traditions of the various community and ethnic groups, like the Dinka, Nuer, and 68 others listed by The Gurtong Peace Trust. Their respective traditions go back farther than anyone can accurately refer to. Theirs are oral histories that have been passed on through generations since the beginning of time.

The tradition I’m referring to is in the tradition of peace and co-habitation within a geographic area and political setting that did not really exist before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The Agreement was signed on January 9, 2005, beginning a 6-year interim period and establishing South Sudan as an autonomous region within Sudan.

Now midway in this interim period, Sudan is preparing for elections. The Fifth National Population Census is underway to reveal the demographics of the country but I’m particularly interested in the South. How many people actually make up its population? A difficult questions considering about half of the four million refugees have yet to return to their ancestral lands. Some are internally displaced within Sudan, others are refugees in neighbouring countries, while still others have taken refuge in Canada, the United States, and other western countries. How can so many people who are still on the move be accurately counted? And how accurate must the count be to consider election results fair and democratic? There hasn’t been an accurate census taken in Sudan since 1983 before the beginning of its 2nd civil war.

To give you an idea of the challenges, Southern Sudan’s land mass is huge with an area of about 640,000 square kilometres (about the size of France), with a population estimated somewhere between 7.5 and 9.7 million. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFDA), the population is expected to increase by as much as three million in the next six years due to the natural increase in population and the return of refugees and internally displaced people. Where will they all live? What infrastructure is needed to accommodate their arrival? What will they do when they get to where they are going? Humanitarian and development aid is needed in South Sudan to provide for those who are already there, so how much more is needed to accommodate the returnees? These are questions that are rarely discussed in Western media so how else is one supposed to genuinely understand without interviewing the few that follow the case closely and talking to the people living through the tumultuous changes? Although the peace holds a huge potential to rejuvenate a wounded land and its scattered people, its erratic interpretation by those who’ve only known war—and the geopolitical wrangling by those interested in the South’s resources—can foment crisis conditions reminiscent of the recent past.

If I can share challenges and successes of the peace process in written, audio and video reports and documentary films, which few others seem to be doing, then maybe it will be a little easier (if ever so slightly) for peace to settle in and make itself comfortable. That’s another reason I want to go.

Kapuscinski writes in the aforementioned book that experience has taught him that “situations of crisis appear more dire and dangerous from a distance than they do up close.” I tend to agree. He continues in the chapter about Zanzibar, that mythical island off the coast of Kenya, about when he chartered a plane from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar to report the previous day’s coup d’état there. He adds, “Our imaginations hungrily and greedily absorb every tiny bit of sensational news, the slightest portent of peril, the faintest whiff of gunpowder, and instantly inflate these signs to monstrous, paralyzing proportions.” Corporate media thrive on this sensationalism but I want to get past it; closer to the truth. However, Kapuscinski doesn’t denigrate the havoc that can reign during such times. He wrote “about those moments when calm, deep waters begin to churn and bubble into general chaos [...] it is easy to perish by accident, because someone didn’t hear something fully or didn’t notice something in time. On such days, the accident is king; it becomes history’s true determinant and master.”

I’ve never been prone to accidents and I plan on keeping it that way.