South Sudan leader says referendum to become independent is more important than election

South Sudan defends independence referendum

NAIROBI, Kenya — Southern Sudan’s leader said Tuesday that a 2011 referendum on his oil-rich region’s independence is more important to his people than Sudan’s upcoming national election.

The southern Sudanese consider the referendum a major political achievement in a 2005 peace deal that ended a 20-year north-south war and will defend it at any cost, said Salva Kiir, the president of Southern Sudan.

“The people of Southern Sudan even attach more importance to the referendum than the elections,” Kiir told leaders of Sudan’s neighbors and others who are meeting to review the progress in implementing the north-south deal.

The seven-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, mediated that peace deal but had not put Sudan on its agenda for five years until Tuesday.

“For (southerners), the right of self-determination is one their biggest political achievements in the CPA and they will defend it at any cost,” Kiir said.

The referendum, which is part of the peace deal that is formally called the Comprehensive Peace Agreement or CPA, has been a source of tension between north and south Sudan even though both parties are supposed to work to make unity attractive.

“While we reaffirm our unequivocal commitment to respect the choice of the people of Southern Sudan, we clearly state that our vision and hope (is) that unity of Sudan will be the free choice and outcome of the referendum,” said Ali Osman Taha, Sudan’s second vice president.

Taha spoke immediately after Kiir, who is also Sudan’s first vice president under the peace deal that created a national unity government, allocating Cabinet posts and a vice-presidential post to the south. Taha is a powerful aide to President Omar al-Bashir. Both men are from the north.

The deal also created a semiautonomous south. It also provides for nationwide parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in April 2010 as well as the referendum to determine whether the south wants to secede from the northern Arabized north.

Over the past five years, southerners have become increasingly frustrated at the lack of peace dividends and have openly favored independence. The most prominent proponent became Kiir himself when in November last year he called on his people to vote for secession in the referendum if they do not want to end up as second-class citizens.

That call, the first ever publicly favoring a split, angered his northern partner and was described as a violation of the spirit of the peace deal.

Many northerners fear the secession of the oil-rich south would deprive their government of the much prized oil revenues.