FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) – With southern Sudan likely to vote for independence from the Muslim-dominated north of the country in a Jan. 9 referendum, Baptist and other Christian leaders have repeated calls for prayer and international assistance to ensure the avoidance of another war.
The Baptist World Alliance released a statement Jan. 5 calling on the globe’s Baptists “to embrace a season of invocation and ongoing engagement that remembers the Sudanese referendum on January 9 and that a broader and more robust implementation of peace and development will take place throughout Sudan.”
The ballot initiative is a key part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 by the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) after 20 years of civil war. The agreement made southern Sudan semi-autonomous, with its own government sitting in the south’s largest city, Juba.
Fearing that the national government in Khartoum will not accept a vote for independence, Sudanese church leaders traveled to the United Kingdom and the United States in October to gain international help.
In the run-up to the referendum they repeated their call.
“Southern Sudanese are ready to express themselves through the referendum,” said Ramadan Chan Liol, general secretary of the Sudan Council of Churches, and member of the Sudan Interior Church, which is affiliated to the Baptist World Alliance. “We are asking the international community to help ensure a free and fair referendum.”
Daniel Deng Bul, archbishop of the Episcopal Church of Sudan and bishop of Juba added, “The international community should make sure the Comprehensive Peace Agreement is done fully. Completing it properly would diffuse a situation that could bring us back to war.”
Deng said at the outset of the CPA the south was in favor of unification. However a lack of investment in infrastructure and basic services has failed to materialize, and southerners’ minds have changed.
“Southern Sudanese have, for a long time, been for unification of the country. That is why the five years were given to their brothers in the north to make unity attractive to the people of southern Sudan.
“We were expecting the north to come in, to build roads, bridges, education infrastructure, to help make a governing mechanism workable. But they failed completely. They didn’t do anything.”
“Southern Sudan is the same as it was during the war — roads, schools and hospitals haven’t been built. So the people of southern Sudan are thinking, ‘Okay, if this is how we’re going to be under unity, what type of unity is that? It’s better for us to separate, because our brothers in the north are not interested in the unity of the country.’”
If the vote for independence takes place, a sizable proportion of the estimated 1.5 million southern Sudanese displaced in the north are likely to return.
Chan added that another area of concern is the churches in the north. More than 200 churches are members of the Sudan Interior Church, roughly split between north and south.
“We know that if the south secedes, the northern government may opt for an Islamic country. So far, the church has suffered under the government, the present government, and we feel that if secession happens, the north will opt for an Islamic country, and therefore the Christians and the churches in the north will suffer persecution,” he said. “And we want the international community, our partners, to be aware that the rights of the minority in the north, including the churches, need to be taken care of in the constitution, so that they are protected.”
There is special concern over the oil-rich Abyei region, which straddles the border between north and south and, under the terms of the CPA, has been administered jointly by both sides. But several Christian leaders expressed concerns over the region’s riches becoming a flashpoint of contention that could lead to another bloody war.
“We urge prayer that this process will be conducted in a manner that respects the dignity and well-being of all,” said Reid Trulson, executive director of American Baptist International Ministries, in an American Baptist News Service release issued Jan. 6.
-30-
Paul Hobson is news editor of The Baptist Times, the weekly newspaper of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. ABP Managing Editor Robert Marus contributed to this story.