Sudan calls for international community to monitor independence referendum

Sudan calls for world to monitor referendum

UNITED NATIONS — Sudan urged the international community on Monday to support and monitor the referendum on the independence of the south of the country that may split Africa’s largest nation in two.

The Jan. 9 vote must be held “without any coercion or diktat and in an atmosphere of integrity and transparency,” Vice President Ali Osman Taha told the annual summit of world leaders at the United Nations.

A 2005 peace agreement that ended a bloody 21-year civil war between Sudan’s mostly Muslim north and predominantly animist and Christian south set up the a unity government in the capital, Khartoum, as well as an autonomous government in the south. It called for the 2011 referendum on southern independence. The civil war, in which nearly two million people perished, was one of the bloodiest of the second half of the 20th century.

Sudanese officials have repeatedly appealed to the international community to help maintain peace as they near the critical ballot on Jan. 9.

“We will try to our best that unity will be the voluntary choice of the choice of the citizens of South Sudan,” Taha said. “Hence we call on all people to support the unity of Sudan, and we call on you to participate in observing the referendum.”

The former rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, who now form part of the ruling coalition in Khartoum, also have called for more international support to support the peace process.

During the current U.N. General Assembly session, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and world leaders have expressed concerns that preparations for the Jan. 9 vote are lagging and urged a timely and peaceful ballot to ensure any possible transition is smooth and does not ignite a new civil war.

Last week, President Barack Obama attended high-level talks on Sudan organized by the U.N. chief. His presence demonstrated Washington’s concern interest in a peaceful resolution to the decades-long conflict. The U.S. has offered Sudan the possibility of restored diplomatic relations if it improves conditions in the conflict-wracked western Darfur region and does not undermine the referendum.

A communique issued after Friday’s meeting said that next year’s referendum would not end obligations by signatories of the five-year-old peace accord to work together for a peaceful transition.