It’s Official
On the ninth of July 2011, six years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, southern Sudan will become South Sudan, the world’s 193rd nation.
In Khartoum’s Friendship Hall, a far-cry from Juba’s John Garang memorial that has been the scene for most referendum-related events, people filled the room as dignitaries and journalists waited for the announcement.
Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, had earlier in the day vowed the north’s acceptance of the result with Salva Kiir, the south’s president-to-be. “We will announce today in front of the world our acceptance and respect for the choice of the people of the south” Bashir said. This evening was just a formality.
But as the screen flashed up the final results — a 98.83% vote for secession — tensions did fill in the hall. One man stood, waving his fist in celebration. Another woman, from the north, started weeping before being escorted from the room by security. “Sudan is one country, not two” she wailed as men whisked her away.
Over a thousand kilometres further south, my friends and colleagues in Juba were watching the results on the television screens, broadcasting live from Khartoum. A text-message told me that a cheer went up as I strayed into the cameras behind the speaker, catching the view from their podium.
Now begins the path to independence, which will not be easy for the South. The entirety of the border that will now separate the two states has yet to be demarcated; the popular consultations in South Kordofan and Blue Nile state have not yet taken place; there are the questions of debt-sharing, and of oil revenues. And then the South has to acquire the means to actually run its own country.
An Independent South Sudan
The result was already known. From looking at the figures posted at voting centres, to reading the reports meticulously compiled by the wire agencies as they phoned around each state, gathering the latest counts, to the sentiment of people on the street. South Sudan would vote for its independence.
But today, the preliminary results of voting in South Sudan (and northern & overseas voting counted for little in the grand scheme of things) were announced.
The figures were of little interest—virtually 100% voted for secession—but the celebrations and decorum were.
The John Garang Mausoleum was filled with people, dignitaries and journalists. As Riek Machar and Salva Kiir made their speeches, the security was struggling to hold back the (slightly premature) celebrations of the crowd gathered.
Justice Chan announced the results, state-by-state, and then school children recited a song about South Sudan following Kiir’s rambling speech in Arabic, Dinka and occasional phrases in English.
But then the party began. The crowds rose from their seats. The beads rattled as traditional dance groups bounced on the dry earth. A festival-like crush formed around local hip-hop artists. And men fell as their shields were beat by traditional clubs.
The people of South Sudan have spoken. And they await July 9th for their independence.
The Circus
Juba, not the most animated of “cities”, became a bustle of foreign correspondents from the world-over during these early weeks of January 2011. The media’s plat du jour. Although when voting was over, a rather stale taste was left in the mouths of many. The circus rolled into town, and then wondered what it was doing here.
When I arrived in early December, I was issued with press card number 60. The day before voting started, the Southern Sudanese Referendum Bureau had issued around 2000. Juba was exploding with media.
What passes for a quality hotel room in Juba is invariably a container—the porta-kabins of building sites in Europe—which go for ludicrous sums. For those of us on a freelance budget, we were sharing tents or small rooms for the same sum with which I lived in a rather nice Haussmannian apartment in Paris. The starting rates for a container were $80 a night; mediocre meals were $10. Me, I was on the rice-and-beans diet; $1 a pop. Hand-washing laundry in water fresh from the Nile, I was reminded that this is indeed one of Africa’s least developed regions, despite the oases of luxury afforded to NGO, UN and media workers.
The story—the birth of a nation, or a variant thereupon—is strong. In the five decades following independence from British colonisation, the north & south were engaged in civil war for all but 11 years. That ended in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which included the right to self-determination; the reason that we all find ourself here in January 2011.
The act itself, though, is not the most scintillating of events. Three million people putting a ballot in a box. The first day, full of colour, was quite a spectacle. Queues had already formed at sunrise; traditional dance troops & joyous voters filled the grounds of the primary voting station in Africa’s soon-to-be newest capital. But following that, what was there really to cover? We engaged in feature stories, capitalising on the media spot-light for Sudan to cover other issues. A seasoned war-photographer with whom I was acquainted was bored out of his mind. “This story is fucking dead.” The clashes or unrest that some predicted, did not arrive. And happily so for the Sudanese.
What’s more, a senator in the US was shot, Tunisia ousted its president, and Australia was ravaged by floods. The calm pace of the “final walk to freedom” was lost in the chaos.
Now, the circus is packing up its tents and leaving. Many will be in Uganda for the forthcoming elections. But come July 9th, the day of independence, Juba will be buzzing again. The beer flowing to the agency expense accounts.
A morning of few surprises
Making a tour of voting centre this morning, the day after polls closed in South Sudan’s independence referendum, sheets of paper announced the counts of each station.
I was surprised at how fast, and efficient, the process had been.
In my local voting centre, over 95% of cast ballots were for independence. Out of 1915 papers in the urn, only 82 were marked for unity.
If this trend continues elsewhere throughout the country, South Sudan will be decidedly independent on July 9th.
Voting Closes for Independence
It has been a long week in Juba this week, covering South Sudan’s historic voting in their independence referendum. From the jubilant celebrations as voting opened, to the empty voting centres that characterised the last few days.
The ballot boxes were sealed for the final time, and locked away as staff took some repose as the heavy sun set. Armed police guarded the container where they rested, before being brought out under electric light, and tipped open onto the counting tables amid much protocol.
From where we stood behind a small cordon, the ballots seemed to be ubiquitously marked with a thumb-print next to the open-palm symbol of secession.
