SPLM Warns Against Postponement Of Referendum

19 July 2010 - (Khartoum) – The SPLM says the country could return to war if the self-determination referendum for southern Sudan is postponed.

The SPLM representative Doctor Luka Biong Deng spoke at the opening session of an International Consultative Forum on Sudan organized by the African Union in Khartoum on Saturday. The forum was meant to discuss pending issues ahead of the January 2011 self-determination referendum for Southern Sudan.

[Dr. Luka Biong]: “We want to have a free and fair referendum and that is why we have been engaging with the NCP, we are now in final stages asking the UN within its mandate to support the referendum. But also we have asked the UN to provide monitoring mission in addition to that. This is a new thing and we would like really to extend our request to the UN member-states to assist us and the UN with this capacity to monitor the referendum. The SPLM we don’t want any reasons to nullify or derail the conduct of the referendum. Any delay of the referendum for the people of southern Sudan, that one will be perceived badly and could take us back again. We want to avoid any disappointment and frustration.”

Doctor Biong said that border demarcation should not be linked with the conduct of the referendum.

[Dr. Luka Biong]: “It should be made also very clear that conducting referendum has nothing to do with the demarcation of the border. The commission that we formed is only to conduct the referendum as per the law and the law is making any requirement that the south should have a clearly defined border. I think it is very important for the international community to be aware of this, linking border demarcation with the conduct of the referendum. But it is an obligation on us to finish the demarcation of the north-south border. As in the tripartite talks, we agreed even for the UN to assist us, and even the international community to assist in the actual demarcation of the border. So it is our responsibility collectively to actually start demarcating the north-south border, but should not be made conditional to the conduct of the referendum.”

Addressing the same forum, the NCP representative and the State Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mister Kamal Ali Hassan, Says NCP can only accept the outcome of the self-determination referendum for southern Sudan if it is free and fair.

[Kamal Ali Hassan]: “We are now towards the end of the implementation of all that we agreed on in the CPA and the most important bench mark is the self-determination referendum for southern Sudan and we are committed that this referendum takes place on schedule and we are committed that we will welcome its results and will recognize them. But first we would like to the referendum to be ‘fair’ in order to prove the option of the people of Southern Sudan who will abide by it. We would like to see to it that together with our partners the SPLM to reach an agreement on the post referendum arrangement issues such as: border between the north and the south, citizenship and other issues, before the conduct of the referendum.”

Mister Kamal Ali Hassan was addressing the opening session of the first International Consultative Forum on Sudan in Khartoum on Saturday.