South Sudan: Millions turn out for independence vote

JUBA, Sudan — “I voted for separation because I need peace and a good future for my kids,” said Diana Paulino, a 20-year-old student with her 1-year-old son, Zezo, slumping sleepily over her shoulder in the mid-morning heat.

Paulino was one of hundreds in line at Nabara Primary School, a dusty campus of tin-roofed brick buildings, in Juba, the city in southern Sudan that today moved a step closer to becoming the capital of the world’s newest nation.

Long before polls opened on Sunday, long lines began to snake out of, and around, public buildings and spaces where voting stations were set up for the first of seven days of polling in a referendum to decide the future of Sudan, Africa’s biggest country.

Almost 4 million southerners have registered to vote for unity with, or secession from, the north of Sudan in a referendum that is the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended 22 years of civil war.

Southern leader Salva Kiir, a former rebel general, cast the first ballot at a crowded polling station on Sunday morning.

“This is the historic moment the people of southern Sudan have been waiting for,” Kiir, wearing his trademark black Stetson, said.

George Clooney, the Hollywood actor and Sudan activist, was in Juba to witness the start of the referendum. “Sudan has such great potential and such great risk so it requires the attention of the world,” he told GlobalPost in an interview.

“I keep coming back to keep the attention on it,” he said. “I’ve been committed to [Sudan] since 2005 and you don’t abandon a place when it’s going through its changes.”

In October, the 49-year old actor spent a week criss-crossing the vast region. This time, he took time out from directing a movie to come back for another five days.

“Everybody has their thing that they’re into, some people like to skydive …” Clooney said. “There’s a lot worse ways to spend your time than coming down here and attempting to look out for people.”

Meanwhile, the Sudanese of the south, even before the end of the vote and any count, said they felt independence had finally arrived.

“All these years we have been pushed by the north but today is the last day, it is over,” said Jacqueline Awate, a 46-year old shop owner waiting to vote.

“Freedom means our survival, our own political identity, our own vision for the future,” said Atot John, a 39-year old engineer. “I have no bad feelings towards the north, let them do whatever they want to do but let them leave us alone.”

As southern voters patiently waited in long lines, many waved their hands in the air chanting, “Bye-bye Khartoum! Bye-bye Bashir!” in reference to the northern capital and president.

On reaching the front of the lines, voters were handed ballot papers with a drawing of clasped hands standing for “unity,” or a lone raised palm for “secession,” and marked an inked thumbprint in the circle of their choice.

Elsewhere in Juba there was a festival atmosphere. Troupes of dancers and singers banged drums and stamped feet kicking up clouds of dust in celebration at what they said was their coming freedom. Others waved the new flag of South Sudan in the air while women let out high-pitched ululations.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is heading up a referendum observer mission, said he had seen “enormous crowds in every place” and that the vote was “calm and peaceful.” By contrast, he said that in the capital Khartoum in the north the longest line Carter Center observers had seen consisted of only 36 people.

Carter added that he had been reassured in a meeting on Saturday with Sudan President Omar al-Bashir that Khartoum would accept the result of the vote.

Although Southern Sudan was largely in a celebratory mood, in the disputed area of Abyei, a fertile, oil-producing region, a parallel referendum on whether it will become part of the north or the south did not go ahead on Sunday.

Instead it has been postponed indefinitely raising fears that tensions could erupt into violence. The day before the voting began at least one person was killed in clashes between southern Ngok Dinka and northern Misseriya tribal fighters.

Speaking not far from the mausoleum of her dead husband John Garang, the southern leader killed in a helicopter crash six months after the signing of the 2005 peace deal, Rebecca Garang said, “Today I am part of southern Sudan but at the same time I feel for those who are not part of this, the people of Abyei.

“If [they] are left behind I have mixed feelings, but when I see this day I know my husband did not die in vain,” she said.