Southern Sudan refugees come back home while N. Sudan vows to make Sharia law national law
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[QUOTE][B]Hope, uncertainty as people flock back to Southern Sudan[/B]
Juba, Sudan (CNN) -- For years, in some cases decades, they survived persistent and intense violence, lived in often squalid refugee camps or tough cities and were treated as second-class citizens in what -- at least for a few more months -- has been their country.
But soon, hundreds of thousands of people from Southern Sudan could have a new country -- and with it, new hopes, new challenges and new uncertainty.
After what was widely hailed as a smoothly run election earlier this month, votes are now being tallied to determine if the South will indeed secede from northern Sudan, where the capital and political power has rested in this east-central African nation. If the majority supports the referendum, Southern Sudan could become the world's newest nation as early as July.
That prospect enticed men like Angelo Androgo. For 25 years, he lived in the capital of Khartoum. He came to his native South lured by messages on television and radio promising fresh opportunity.
But he's found little to suggest that his life will become better any time soon.
"I wanted to come to my country, but they shouldn't have told lies on the TV," he said. "And if someone had called me and told me what it was like, I wouldn't have come."
For now, Androgo and his family are living under a tree in Juba, the biggest city and prospective capital of Southern Sudan. Whatever his doubts, he says that he's committed to making it work -- for himself, his children and his homeland.
He has plenty of company in the decaying Nile River port and large refugee camp of Juba, which in recent days has filled with happy, dancing native Southern Sudanese. Like Androgo, they voiced pleasure with the direction that their homeland may be moving, even as they're unsure what direction their own lives may take.
Many are transitioning from urban environments to a fare more rural one. Some teenagers, who had never seen Southern Sudan until their recent arrival, say they are waiting for factories to build.
Still, except for makeshift efforts to build simple houses, there is little evidence in the area of large-scale construction. What is apparent, though, is positive energy seen in friendly waves, heard in frequent singing and evidenced in the enthusiastic turnout in the election that ended Saturday night.
Officials in Southern Sudan said preliminary results show that at least 60% of registered voters nationwide had cast ballots, crossing the threshold needed for the referendum to be valid. Officials speculate that the final turnout could reach 91%. And 3.1 million of Southern Sudan's 3.7 million registered voters had weighed in as of Friday evening, according to Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission.
These voters include men like John Baptiste, a native Southern Sudanese.
"We have waited for 50 years, and we want to be separate," he said.
For two decades, the government dominated by Arab Muslims in northern Sudan fought black Christians and animists in the south, like Androgo and Baptiste, in a civil war that left about 2 million dead. That was until a 2005 landmark agreement that, among other things, paved the way for this month's referendum.
Remote Southern Sudan has promise: about 80 percent of Sudan's valuable oil reserves are in this region, which had been a source of contention during the war.
And yet the severely undeveloped region and potential new country, which is about the size of Texas, only has 30 miles of paved roads.
That's made it challenging to care for the tens of thousands coming to Southern Sudan, hoping to improve their situations but seeing little in the way of immediate economic opportunity. One of the largest, and only, structures at the large Juba camp is a straw tent that serves as both a clinic and resting place for women and children.
Dr. Vincent Kahi, a medical coordinator with the International Rescue Committee, said medical personnel -- like Southern Sudanese themselves -- are simply trying to do all that they can, given what they have, and trying to keep their hopes high.
"In an emergency, somehow we have to provide the care, wherever we are," Kahi said. "We have to do the best we can."[/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/17/sudan.returning.home/index.html[/url]
[QUOTE][B]Not all in northern Sudan embrace Islamic law[/B]
Khartoum, Sudan (CNN) -- Many southerners are voting for an independent Sudan this week, thirsting for freedom from the north. They equate sharia or Islamic law that President Omar al-Bashir has vowed to strengthen with slavery.
Al-Bashir has declared that if Southern Sudan votes in favor of separation, sharia will become the main source of Sudan's Constitution, Islam the state religion and Arabic the official language.
Many in the north are embracing al-Bashir's pledge.
Newspaper publisher Al-Tayib Mustafa said he will be happy to see his nation break in two. Islam, he said, comes above all else.
"When the south goes, then the north will be Muslim," he said. "For a Muslim, unity is not as important as religion. Sharia is religion. Sharia is Islam."
But there are other faces of Islam in Sudan, including a Sufi community, and Mustafa's position is hardly shared by all Sudanese.
Some in the north consider themselves Arabs, others Africans. They speak a dozen different languages, and while a majority of people are Muslims, a significant number are Christians or practice traditional religions.
Sharia already is the law of the land in northern Sudan, but Sudanese authorities have relaxed its enforcement since 2005 when a peace treaty ended more than 20 years of civil war.
The war pitted a northern government of Arab Muslims against blacks in Southern Sudan who practice Christianity and animist religions. It killed 2 million people and displaced several million others, mainly from Southern Sudan.
The president's comments have stirred fear that the government will implement sharia for the hundreds of thousands of southerners and other non-Muslims in northern Sudan, including many who fled fighting, disease and famine in the south.
Even many Muslims find the imposition of Islamic law troubling, and it's even more disturbing for the small and ancient Christian community in the north.
"We as Christians, we feel that Christianity is a Sudanese religion and should be respected," said Bishop Ezekiel Kondo, who oversees Khartoum's Episcopal Church and chairs the Sudan Council of Churches.
Al-Bashir's vow to strengthen Islamic law came as a shock to Kondo.
"As a church we are not happy with what he said, and we feel as the president -- he is the president for everyone in the country -- he knows very well that there are other religious communities."
But Mohammed Othman Salih, secretary-general of the Sudanese Muslim Clerics Council, brushed aside such concerns.
"The Islamic sharia guarantees the rights of non-Muslims better than secular laws," he said. "Why? Because it's an issue of a religious duty, and they are human rights sanctified by God almighty."[/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/12/sudan.islamic.law/index.html[/url]
North Sudan is best Sudan!
Sudan turned into such a shithole when the EIJ and al-Qaeda showed up. It's a shame.
[QUOTE=stone555;27501032]Sudan turned into such a shithole when the EIJ and al-Qaeda showed up. It's a shame.[/QUOTE]
most countries do
[QUOTE=Mr.Dounut;27501149]most countries do[/QUOTE]The problem is that the government in Sudan were being bribed by the EIJ and al-Qaeda. They only ended up kicking them out after the EIJ killed one of their member's son and then published the tape. At that point it was pretty much too late and a lot of Islamic extremists had already moved in.
But some countries can do a good job at resisting them. Egypt is a good example.
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