KHARTOUM: A referendum due early next year on south Sudan’s independence will be derailed unless the country’s electoral commission swiftly resolves an internal row, a southern leader warned on Thursday.
"If the referendum commission within the next two weeks is not able to resolve all the issues that they are facing now, the referendum will be killed off and the referendum commission will be responsible for that," said Pagan Amum, secretary general of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
South Sudan is set to hold a referendum on January 9, as part of a 2005 peace deal, which promises southerners the chance to choose independence or to remain part of a united Sudan.
Parliament ratified a key law at the end of last year setting up the vote and the commission responsible for organizing it, after northern and southern leaders overcame a dispute that threatened to jeopardize the peace deal.
But the commission, which should have been formed at the beginning of 2010, was only nominated in June, and its members are still divided over who should head the commission.
"The commission now is paralyzed, it is not working," Amum said.
"I am afraid there may be elements within the referendum commission that are actually planning… a postponement, or in the worst case a total betrayal (of the right) to be exercised by the people of southern Sudan," he added.
Under the referendum law, the final list of eligible voters should be drawn up by October 9, three months before the vote itself.
However, the commission has still not begun the laborious process of voter registration which is expected to take several weeks at least.
"We at the commission will begin the necessary measures to try to hold the referendum on time but we must warn the partners" there is not enough time, commission member Tarek Osman al-Taher told AFP on Monday.
His comments were condemned as "irresponsible" by the SPLM, the former southern rebel group that fought a devastating 22-year war with the north in which about two million people were killed before a power sharing deal was finally agreed in 2005.
"Sudan is entering a very dangerous and concerning moment," Amum said, adding any postponement of the referendum would "not be in the interests of peace."
Meanwhile, the southern army’s chief of staff said violence in south Sudan is due to a "resource" war over cattle and not internal political or ethnic differences.
"We don’t have tribalism in south Sudan," said James Hoth, of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA), the former rebel forces turned official southern military.
"What we have is a war of resources. People just want more cows," said Hoth, speaking to a crowded lecture hall of university students in Juba late on Wednesday.
At least 700 people have been killed and more than 152,000 forced from their homes due to violence in the south since January, according to UN estimates.
Last year about 2,500 people were killed in southern Sudan — a higher toll than in the troubled western region of Darfur — and more than 350,000 people fled their homes.
"Armed civilians are killing people for a small gain, not because they have a political vision," added Hoth, speaking at the launch of a book he co-authored with Kuol Deng Abot, the director of the south’s security and intelligence agency.
But he also admitted southern politicians were to blame in some cases, sparking conflict to get a "dividend" before stopping the fighting.
"Politicians also put their hand into these conflicts. Here in Juba, because someone wants to be minister, sometimes they throw a war to their clan," Hoth said.
Hoth and Abot’s book, "Liberation Struggle in South Sudan," was written as part of the generals’ masters theses at South Africa’s Fort Hare University, and looks at ways to boost conflict resolution between former warring groups in the south.
However, Hoth also repeated accusations that former enemies in north Sudan were working to destabilize the south ahead of the referendum.
"We are fighting a proxy war. Khartoum is not sleeping," Hoth said, citing the example of a helicopter captured on Sunday.
The helicopter’s passengers are accused of supporting George Athor, a senior southern officer who began a rebellion in April after losing the gubernatorial race in Jonglei state.
The south has accused "quarters" in Khartoum of seeking to destabilise the region ahead of its referendum.
Khartoum has repeatedly rejected the allegations, but tensions remain high between the mainly Muslim north and the south, whose people are largely Christian or follow traditional religions.
"The Khartoum government wants the south to be in turmoil," added Hoth. "They are telling the international community that the south is not ready to govern itself."
However, Hoth said he was optimistic about the future and that the referendum would go ahead as planned. "Nobody will stop the referendum, nobody," he said. "South Sudan will be a viable state."
