Voting started peacefully in a referendum that could split Sudan
and create the world's newest nation as millions of people queued from
before dawn to cast their ballots.
But diplomats and aid workers warned that though the poll seemed to mark the
final stage of a peace deal struck six years ago between the Arab north of
Sudan and the largely Christian south, the causes of Africa's longest civil
war would not melt away overnight.
More than two million people died in the conflict and four million - half the
population of the south - were forced to flee their homes. But yesterday at
polling stations in Juba, the southern capital, the mood was jubilant.
Bands beat wooden drums and women draped in the red, black, green and blue
flag of South Sudan danced among voters.
"It is this that we have waited for, the chance to become an independent
country which can grow without oppression from bad leaders," said David
Yak, 45, as he waited to vote in Freedom Square.
"Now things will be very different. We have oil, we have gold, we have
the best farming land. Soon we will be like South Africa, we will have an
economy which can even match those in Europe."
Holding a peaceful poll, and a transparent count, are however "only the
very start, not the end" of Sudan's path to independence, a Western
diplomat in Juba warned. "There are absurdly high expectations that
from the day after separation, schools, hospitals, jobs, roads, electricity,
all of it will suddenly appear," he said.
Alun McDonald, spokesman for Oxfam in East Africa, said: "That is simply
not going to happen. The root causes of violence will not go away following
the referendum. The international community and the northern and southern
Sudanese governments have been working to resolve the high-level political
issues, while some of the concerns of the local communities are in danger of
being overlooked."
Southern Sudan's government, largely led by former rebel soldiers many of whom
can barely read and write, will face enormous challenges as it takes charge
of the world's newest country.
There are barely 40 miles of paved road in an area the size of France. Four in
five of the population of eight million are illiterate, and a 15-year-old
girl has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than of completing primary
education.
World Bank funds totalling almost f350 million earmarked for southern Sudanese
development have not been spent because the government could not "get
the money out of the door", according to an aid worker in Juba.
Officials - especially in rural areas away from international scrutiny - are
regularly accused of corruption, and up to a third of the south's budget has
reportedly been spent on military supplies.
Chief among voters' concerns as they queued to vote, however, was the chance
that northern Sudan will somehow scupper the vote, the counting, or refuse
to recognise the result.
"We cannot trust that they will be happy to say "bye-bye" to
the south," said Mary Nyrasuk, 57, a primary schoolteacher who
travelled from Khartoum to her southern homeland to vote.
President Omar al-Bashir, indicted for genocide and war crimes in Darfur by
the International Criminal Court, has publicly stated he wants his country
to stay united.
Three-quarters of Sudan's oil, its largest foreign exchange earner, lie in the
south, and Khartoum faces an economic crisis if it loses profits from sales
mostly to China and Malaysia.
But even Mr Bashir has struck a conciliatory tone, saying late last week that
he would be the first international leader to congratulate the southern
Sudanese if they voted for secession.
"In the last few days, the chances of conflict have greatly lessened,"
said former Jimmy Carter, the former US president, whose Carter Center is
monitoring the vote and who met with Mr Bashir on Saturday.
"There is a general acceptance in the north and the south that if the
vote is for separation, it will be accepted peacefully."
