‘The upcoming referendum is a choice between being a second-class in your own country, or a free person in your independent state.’
(BBC, January 5, 2011)
This was rather loaded way Salva Kiir, the presumptive president of Africa’s newest state, framed the choice the predominantly Christian-animists of South Sudan faced in last month’s referendum on secession from their Muslim compatriots in the north…
What looms, however, may cause the southerners’ Independence Day, which they will mark on July 9, to turn into a pyrrhic celebration.
Because, even though both sides are expressing words of mutual recognition and respect, lingering mutual enmity and mistrust are bound to rear their ugly heads over the next five months as they negotiate terms for sharing Sudan’s all-important oil revenues as well as the final border demarcation….
Not to mention that, just as Tunisians inspired Egyptians to launch their own revolution, these southerners might inspire Darfurians in the west to hold an independence referendum too.
(South Sudan secedes, The iPINIONS Journal, February 9, 2011)
This was the rather cautious note I sounded on the eve of that fated referendum. Well, even though there have been many skirmishes since then, today is undeniably independence day for South Sudan.
So, happy Independence Day!
I wish this new African country well….
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South Sudan secedes…