IN THE FACE OF SUCCESSFUL ELECTIONS
British Empire Strategy Unchanged:
Balkanize Sudan
by Douglas DeGroot and Lawrence Freeman
April 30—Despite the cynical reporting by the Western press reflecting the views of governments hostile to Sudan, that Sudan's election fell short of international standards, Russia, China, the African Union, the Arab League, and IGAD[1] praised the election as peaceful, and a positive step forward for Sudan. All honest observers, who actually care about the people and Sudan's future, and who are not in lockstep with British imperialist intentions to divide up the country into separate warring entities, would come to the same conclusion.
However, the City of London-based financial cartel made it very clear that the national, state, and local elections were not going to affect their plan to break up Sudan. Even before the April 11-15 elections took place, London announced that its goal was to split up Sudan, and that it arrogantly thought that it would be able to rip the nation apart.
This historic election, the first in 24 years, was greeted with genuine excitement by Sudanese from all parts of the country. Approximately 16 million citizens were registered to vote, more than three times the number who were registered in the last election, in 1986. This in itself is a significant accomplishment, in such a huge and undeveloped nation. Voter participation averaged 60%, which means about 9 million Sudanese voted—almost one fourth of the total population of 38 million—with some areas reporting even higher voter turnout. President Hassan Omar al-Bashir was re-elected, with almost 68% of the vote, and Salva Kiir Mayardit was elected President of southern Sudan with 93% of the vote. Neither of these results is surprising. The southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the northern-based opposition parties impotently pulled out of the Presidential race days before the elections, when it became clear that they would be overwhelmingly rejected by the voters, because they had provided no leadership for many years. In the South, Salva Kiir ran virtually unopposed.
As expected, Bashir's National Congress Party swept over 90% of the contested seats for the Parliament in the North, and may have as much as an 80% majority in the Parliament, sharing power with the SPLM. Nevertheless, Bashir asked the other opposition parties to join the government in an effort to promote reconciliation. There are indications that a few of the parties are in negotiations to become part of the new government.
Africans Support Sudan Elecion
The chair of the African Union (AU) Commission, Jean Ping, has commended the Sudanese electoral process, which he said was peaceful. "The Chairperson of the commission wishes to commend the people of the Sudan and the Sudanese political parties for peacefully conducting the just-concluded multiparty general elections, held from 11-15 April 2010," said the AU statement issued in Khartoum April 16.
"These elections constitute a fundamental milestone towards realizing the democratic transformation of the Sudan as espoused by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)," Ping said.
Ping indicated that the elections were faced with some administrative and logistical challenges, which were later solved without affecting the electoral process.
"In this regard, the chairperson expresses his appreciation for the efforts that had been deployed by the National Elections Commission to address and resolve them. It was encouraging that such challenges had not impacted negatively on the resolve of the Sudanese people to cast their votes," said the AU statement.
Ping reiterated the unwavering support of the AU to the Sudanese people, especially through the mission and work of the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) on Sudan.
"[Ping] is confident that the Panel's efforts will be instrumental in helping the Sudanese stakeholders implement the remaining key aspects of the CPA and bring about peace, national reconciliation and justice in Darfur," added the statement.
Ping further urged the Sudanese people to maintain calm, and looked forward to a smooth completion of the electoral process with the announcement of the final results.
A UN news report on the elections stated that the assessment of African Union's 50-member observation team was that "elections in a place like Sudan—which faces challenges due to its geographic size, underdevelopment, high rate of illiteracy, an unfamiliar voting system, and ongoing and historical instability—cannot be held to international standards by developed nations with longstanding democratic traditions."
The elections, the AU team argued, were "imperfect but historic," and a huge milestone for the peace and democratization of the country.
The 37-member team for IGAD, a Horn of Africa bloc of nations instrumental in mediating the 2005 CPA, mostly concurred. Despite discovering irregularities and anomalies—including missing names on voter lists, voter confusion over locations of polling stations, delays, and inadequate privacy provisions to ensure secret ballots during polling—the IGAD team concluded that the elections were "credible," considering the big challenges in holding such a vote.
Russia, China, and the UN Agree
According to an April 21 report in SudanVisionDaily online, Russian special envoy to Sudan Mikhail Margelov said that only technical flaws occurred at the polls, which did not impact the integrity of the process as a whole. He criticized Western monitors over their assessments made over the weekend. "In particular, voting papers were delivered late to polling stations. And polling stations themselves did not open on time. The names of some candidates on the lists were distorted or had the wrong symbols."
Margelov told the Russian Interfax news agency: "This country is just emerging from a state of war." He also said that the opinion of the EU observers to the effect that the elections "did not meet the key requirements of the electoral process" were too categorical. Margelov said the elections in Sudan should be judged by African, and not European standards.
The Russian official stressed that the reported irregularities did not give enough grounds for casting doubt on the validity of the elections. Russia had sent observers to monitor the elections.
SudanVision also reported that China's foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu praised the sound organization of the Sudan elections, and said that the vote took place amid an environment of stability and order. Jiang stated that China, which had also sent election observers, would continue, in collaboration with the international community, the "constructive efforts" for supporting the peace process in Sudan.
A Voice of America release April 20 reported that the UN Secretary General's special representative for Sudan, Haile Menkerios, said the elections were an important benchmark in the implementation of the CPA. According to the VOA report, the United Nations played a pivotal role in the elections by providing technical and logistical assistance to the Sudan National Electoral Commission.
Dividing Sudan Is London's Goal
London needed to allow the election to go forward, to fulfill the requirements demanded by the CPA, before the referendum scheduled for next January, could take place, while London and its allies are doing everything possible to get southern Sudan to vote for secession.
While accepting the election to pave the way for the referendum, the media reports of the British and their allies are describing the election as flawed, so as not to give any credibility to the government of President Bashir, but, at the same time, not declaring the elections a fraud, so they can maneuver to get what they really want: the South to secede.
The Financial Times stated in an editorial on April 20 that, "the international community must not lose sight of the bigger goal, which is the referendum." The editorial stated bluntly that, "A vote for secession ... is now all but certain." It called on its Western allies to join in the campaign for secession of the South.
Before the elections even took place, the London Economist on April 8 stated flatly that "a flawed election would be better than none, for it would mean progress towards a peaceful north/south split." On the last day of the elections, April 15, the Economist termed the elections "rigged in the north, more or less fair in the south." The London Guardian on April 18 reported that Sudan "is on the brink of splitting," and went so far to propose a name for southern Sudan, should the British succeed promoting its secession: "Republic of the White Nile."
Lincoln Was Right: No Separation
Thank God, that Abraham Lincoln was the President the United States during our Civil War. If it had been any lesser man than he, the United States would not exist today as a sovereign nation, and the world would be a feudal relic, completely controlled by British monetarism, guided by Lord Bertrand Russell's evil genocidal policies.
Lincoln was right to fight for as long as it took to defeat the Confederacy. In the case of Sudan, it was the British and the United States who forced it to accept a referendum against a united nation, as the price for ending the long war between the North and the South, which led to the CPA. It was a dirty deal, that Lincoln would not have accepted.
The division of nations into separate parts, pitting one group against another, instigating wars among peoples, is the age-old imperial method of "divide and rule." This is the danger threatening Sudan, as it faces the potential for balkanization, either by the referendum scheduled for Jan. 9, 2011, or by a possible British-manipulated unilateral declaration of independence by the SPLM before then. Many already consider secession a "done deal," but only fools who fail to understand the primacy of the sovereign nation, or outright enemies of Africa, would wish for such a "done deal."
There is already great concern among Sudan's neighbors that this type of north/south division will be dangerous for them, since similar "ethnic/religious" conflicts have been fostered inside their own borders. Africa already suffers from having been carved up by the colonial powers. Take the case of Nigeria, where calls for "ethnic/tribal" balkanizations have undermined its sovereignty since the 1966 coup that overthrew the First Republic. Will elements in the volatile Niger Delta now see the impending secession of south Sudan as a new model to create their "own country?"
Who created the north-south division in Sudan in the first place? There was nothing natural about it. The very characterization of an African South and Muslim North is a racist affront to Africans.
The so-called north-south conflict was created by the British by means of two laws in 1922: the Closed Districts Ordinance and the Passport and Permits Ordinance. Without consultation or agreement from the people of Sudan, the British-imposed laws divided the country into two separate entities (as was also done in Nigeria).
These laws sealed off the South, declaring it a "closed district," and criminalized any movement between the South and the North without a "passport" issued by the British. This was done to foster two distinct entities, governed separately, thus preventing the emergence of one Sudan nation.
Will the South Be Used To Create New Wars?
There is a British faction in the U.S. government that has been advocating for the South to secede for years. Part of their anti-northern Sudan mentality is simply their hatred of Islam, but it goes beyond that. The primary reason that Bashir was targeted by the illegal International Criminal Court is that, with all its imperfections, the Bashir government has represented a nationalist current that patriots from South found they could work with to help Sudan progress towards nationhood. With the decades-long effort to overthrow Bashir having failed, their tactics have focused on pushing ahead for a new "Southern State," knowing full well what the consequences will be.
Is southern Sudan qualified to be a "new state?" Is there a principled reason to break up Sudan into two entities? Whose purpose will that serve? We maintain that it would not be the Sudanese people. With unresolved tribal disputes leading to increased violence that will be easy to manipulate, a highly factionalized SPLM government and army, horrible economic conditions, the lack of a minimal infrastructure, and a food crisis that will require food assistance to 4.3 million Sudanese living in the south—close to 50% of southern Sudan's reported population—southern Sudan is being called a "pre-failed state." Those committed to insuring that Sudan will never emerge as sovereign nation, which could help bring peace and stability in the volatile Horn of Africa, also intend that southern Sudan will fail, and will use its failure to detonate new and more bloody conflicts in Sudan, and neighboring countries as well.
What is urgently needed at this moment in Sudan's existence, is for Sudanese patriots from both the North and South to work towards a united Sudan, premised on economic development, which requires the immediate overturning of the destructive sanctions and embarking on an aggressive nationwide and region-wide infrastructure-building program that will enable Sudan to become the breadbasket of Africa.
[1] The Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Eastern Africa (IGAD) is a bloc of six nations in eastern Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda), which were instrumental in the process that led to the CPA peace agreement between the government of Sudan, and the South.
