SOUTHERN SUDAN ACCEPTS CENSUS DATE, SAYS CONCERNS REMAIN

By Skye Wheeler, extract from page 14 of the Juba Post of 18-25 April 2008, Juba, South Sudan


South Sudan’s semi-autonomous government raised new concerns on Wednesday about next week’s national census and said it should not be used to define how money and power will be shared out.


Census-taking had been due to start on April 15 but was delayed for a week after objections from the south.


South Sudan’s cabinet said on Wednesday following an all-day meeting that it would accept the new April 22 start date but warned that serious logistical problems remained.

‘ (We) will have no objection to the census going ahead but can these issues be resolved within seven days ? ‘ South Sudan ‘s Information Minister Gabriel Changson Chang said.

‘ I think it will be very difficult if not impossible’.


The southern government is concerned some Sudanese will be excluded from the count, among them millions of southerners who fled to the north of the country during the two decades of civil war.


Chang said only about five million people in the south were likely to be reached, partly because early rains had made some areas inaccessible. He said southern enumerators had only 110 cars out of the 400 needed, and that English and Arabic-speakers in the south might be sent census forms in the wrong language.


The south also wants questions on ethnicity and religion added to the questionnaire.

Chang said the results should not be used to determine Sudan’s borders or the framework of a promised referendum on southern succession. The census should not be used ‘ to determine wealth or power sharing, or…the cultural identity of the country’, he added.

Many Sudanese in the western Darfur region, where a separate conflict is entering its sixth year, also reject the census, as many areas there are inaccessible because of poor security.


The headcount is a key part of a 2005 north-south peace deal that ended Africa’s longest civil war, in which two million people died. It is intended to define how power and wealth will be shared and will help define constituencies ahead of democratic elections due next year – the first in 23 years.


The decision from south Sudan means the census is likely to go ahead on April 22 but the results may be contested.


‘ We will have a very strong opinion on the general outcome … and the usage of the results’, Chang said.


A slow road to peace has created distrust between north and south.