A crowd of several thousand northerners demonstrating in favour of unity turned on around 40 southerners who arrived at the rally. The police then joined in, beating southerners who fled the scene, witnesses said.

Salva Kiir earlier asked the UN delegation to deploy peacekeepers along the border with the north ahead of the referendum.

Between eight and 10 areas along the border, including the Abyei oil fields, are still in dispute and analysts say a clash at any of them could spark off a military confrontation. Both sides have sent troops there.

 

…no set steps for either autonomy or to join the south – something many ordinary people assume will take place…

“We worry about the future, because we feel we could stand alone,” said former rebel soldier Abdulaziz Kuwa…I support the SPLM, but I fear the north will not let our farmland go without a fight.”

Few believe the government in Khartoum would easily surrender such wealth to their former civil war enemies in the south…The future of the region may not be clear but one thing seems certain – for the Nuba Mountains, there are tough times ahead.

UK pressures Sudan

Major donor Britain is pressing Sudan’s former north-south foes urgently to resolve differences over borders and sharing oil revenues, with a southern referendum on independence less than a year away…But issues of sharing oil and the river Nile waters, citizenship and demarcating a north-south border have not been discussed by north and south Sudanese officials, which one presidential adviser has called a “recipe for war”.

With just a year to go until a referendum on Southern Sudanese secession, we’re asking whether the south could survive on its own?

Is a two-state Sudan viable – and how would the issue of oil be resolved? Does the north need the south? If you are in Sudan what is your hope for the future? What impact would a divided Sudan have on the rest of Africa? Is Sudan ready to make such a decision? Send us your views.

“Both sides also have to prepare for a possible vote for secession and reach agreements on a range of areas on everything from currency to the sharing of oil wealth, national assets and debt. The south, where most follow Christianity and traditional beliefs, needs to decide what it would call itself. Perhaps most pressingly, north and south Sudan have still not agreed the position of their shared border, along which most of Sudan’s oil fields lie…there was a risk of war if outstanding issues on the border, nationality, debt and other areas were not resolved ahead of the referendum. Analysts have warned conflict may also arise if the north refuses to accept an independence vote and the resulting loss of control over oilfields. The International Crisis Group warned an independent south Sudan could become a failed state “overwhelmed by internal divisions, poor governance and bureaucratic deficiencies”.

Is Sudan Moving Back to the Brink of War? (TIME)

Read this article for answers on the following:

How likely is a new civil war? So what can be done? What are the international differences over how to deal with Sudan? And perhaps most important: What if the Sudanese are set on a return to war?

“International pressure and mediation can only do so much. And nobody expects a more robust intervention than the U.N.-African Union peacekeepers already deployed in Darfur. Whatever the calls for the world to act, to a great extent the future of Sudan — war, peace, unity, disintegration — will be left to the Sudanese to decide.”

I stumbled upon this article and now this organization. I think it’s great. I hope it’s productive. Actually, I think people possessing a desire to do anything is productive in itself. Like a blog…

“Famous drummers from Radiohead, The Police, Pink Floyd, Snow Patrol and the legendary musicians Mohammed Munir, Yehia Khalil and Mustaffa Tettey Addy are all joining the beat. Join a beat for peace and call on governments worldwide to take action to prevent war in Sudan. Join a beat for peace and call on governments worldwide and Sudanese leaders to protect the people of Sudan. Join a beat for peace and call on governments worldwide to protect human rights and give peace a chance in Sudan. Join the global beat for peace.”

“On Saturday, there will be exactly a year left to prevent the return of a conflict that was once the longest-running in Africa — Sudan’s north-south war, which claimed about two million lives. With elections due this year and 365 days left until the crucial referendum on independence for the south, concern is growing among analysts, advocacy groups and NGOs working in Sudan that the spectre of widespread conflict is once again a reality.”

South Sudan vote could lead to war

“”Imagine if we had the referendum and separation happened and we had not yet agreed on the borders? This is war…”"

“Most of Sudan’s oil fields traverse the north-south border which has yet to be demarcated. Sudan’s external debt is about $30 billion. Salaheddin said hundreds of thousands of southerners in the north and northerners living in the south would be left in limbo if their nationalities were not defined. He also warned of regional problems over what international agreements would be respected by a separate south, giving the example of an agreement over Nile waters with Egypt. ”The government cannot go ahead with this referendum until some of these issues have been discussed,” he said.”

South Sudan army/civilian clash kills 17

“Seventeen people were killed on Thursday when armed civilians ambushed south Sudanese soldiers trying to disarm tribes following heavy fighting in the semi-autonomous region last year, an official said on Tuesday. A 2005 peace deal ended more than two decades of north-south civil war, but the south Sudan army has found it difficult to disarm civilians in the lawless south and tribal violence claimed an estimated 2,500 lives in the south last year.

“The soldiers clashed with armed civilians, 13 were killed from the soldiers’ side and four from the civilians,” Lakes State Deputy Governor David Noc Marial told Reuters. The civilians’ refusal to disarm was behind the ambush, he said.”

“An official of South Sudan’s government says Sudan is in danger of witnessing another civil war between the Muslim north and the Christian and animist south unless the international community intervenes.

The National Congress Party, headed by President Omar al-Bashir, has repeatedly broken the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the country’s bloody two-decade-long civil war, reported Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, head of government of South Sudan Mission to the United States, to International Christian Concern.

As a result of the North’s failure, the delicate peace process is in danger of being derailed, he said.

“The role of the international community is to get in now and help us (the South and North Sudanese) to make sure that we work together to avoid war, to have peaceful disengagement and a fair election…”

UN Brings Sudanese Tribes Together (12/30)

The dialogue was also the first in the history of peacebuilding in the Abyei area in which women took an active part in the talks.

“Women bear the heaviest burden during conflict situations,” according to Nyancuk Truk, a representative of the Dinka. “We not only lose our sons and husband in the fighting, but we also lose our dignity.”

UNDP stressed in a press release that “only through the support to community reconciliation dialogues in Sudan that bring together women groups, youth and traditional leaders will the region be able to ensure its hard-won peace.”

“Sudan’s ruling party accused southern authorities of election fraud on Monday after figures showed five southern states had managed to sign up more than 100 percent of their estimated electorate in a voter count. South Sudanese officials dismissed the accusations saying official estimates of the electorate were inaccurate because they were based on a faulty census.”

You can rest assured that this is only the beginning of erroneous accusations.

If the North can convince the world that the southern vote for independence was fraudulent (when it happens), then the south will have that time have no legal basis for secession.

The problem in my mind, however, is that it’s a little to blatant of a strategy for the North. They’re just crying wolf and everyone knows it.

In 2009, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) witnessed a worrying deterioration in the situation in the semi-autonomous region of Southern Sudan, with severe medical humanitarian  implications for the population…

Before the war, Southern Sudan had a severe lack of general infrastructure and health systems, and the decades of conflict destroyed what little existed. At present, it is commonly estimated that up to 75 percent of the population have no access to even the most basic healthcare.

This is an ACTUAL 75%. In that States, we have heard politicians, including our president, claim that over 40 million Americans don’t have health insurance. What they don’t tell you is that 9 million of those make over $75,000 per year, 5.2 million are illegal immigrants, 9.7 million are eligible for current government programs, and 6 million are eligible for employer-sponsored insurance. But the Sudanese don’t lack health insurance, they lack health care. They don’t have an emergency room to visit. They don’t have CVS or Rite Aid to purchase Tylenol or bandages.

The only hospital I saw in southern Sudan was closed, abandoned. A mother was left on the road- begging for someone to help her sick child being held in her arms. The nearest hospital was miles away, which in that terrain, would take hours to reach even in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

SLIDESHOW

Armies from both sides, and array of rebel groups and militias, are also stocking on weapons ahead of any conflict, despite arms embargoes imposed by the European Union and the United Nations, said a report by the Small Arms Survey.

“Sudan is sliding toward violent breakup,” said ICG Sudan adviser Fouad Hikmat in a statement.

“Unless the international community … cooperate to support both CPA (the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement) implementation and vital additional negotiations, return to north-south war and escalation of conflict in Darfur are likely,” the report from the Brussels-based group said…

Iran and China were the main suppliers to the north, it added, while the south was getting much of its weapons via Kenya and Ethiopia, with a transfer of tanks coming from Ukraine through Kenya documented in 2007 and 2008.

The report said Sudan’s northern army had around 225,000 troops, armed with an estimated 310,000 small arms, while the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) had around 125,000 men with 175,000 small arms.

Both armories were dwarfed by the estimated 2 million weapons in the hands of Sudanese civilians, the report said.

The rulers of south Sudan have reached agreement with the national government that the south could secede if a majority of voters support independence in a referendum due in 2011…A civil war between the Arab-led north and rebels from the marginalised south began in the 1950s and became one of Africa’s longest and bloodiest conflicts.

If war restarts, it could trigger a new humanitarian crisis – an estimated 2m people died in the war from 1983-2005 – and threaten Sudan’s oil industry, in which China is a key player.

Mr Amum said the stand-off over the details of the referendum had been the result of Mr Bashir’s regime “trying to betray the people of Sudan”.