Dark clouds gather over Southern Sudan

The raid on Bakhita Radio led to a strongly-worded response from the Catholic Archdiocese of Juba which condemned the act: "The Catholic Church and Bakhita Radio have no political affiliation and take no sides with any political party. We will not accept church personnel and institutions to be treated as criminals."

The Association for Media Development in South Sudan says the harassment is indicative of a structural problem in the South's campaign environment--the lack of media laws in place. The press release said:

As we speak, the draft South Sudan Media Laws are still sitting in the Southern Sudan Assembly awaiting enactment. Meanwhile, we conduct elections campaigns in an environment where the media is still playing a game of football without clear rules, a Russian Roulette game where journalists have no idea which opinion expressed contains the next bullet, worse still for not knowing from whom in particular the whistle is coming.

Similar practices are taking place in the North, where new rules recently published by the elections commission have created a highly restrictive environment for campaigning by opposition parties. One new rulerequires parties to give 72 hours notice for rallies held even within party premises.

On Thursday, security forces broke up a voter education campaign inKhartoum held by civil society group Girifna. According to the Africa Center for Justice and Peace Studies, three members of the organization were arrested and charged for "public noisiness." The day before, Sudanese state radio blocked Umma party presidential candidate Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi from airing his 20-minute radio broadcast because of points in his speech that were seen as "inciting prejudices and hatred against the state," including a reference to incumbent president Omar al-Bashir's ICC arrest warrant.

With so many instances of political oppression, it's hard to be optimistic about the prospect for free and fair elections in Sudan. One clear first step is for government to enact equitable electoral legislation that will help create an environment in which opposition politics can survive. In the final weeks before polling begins, U.S. and E.U. monitors must also ensure that they are not simply assessing the elections themselves, but evaluating whether the larger human and political rights context is in place for elections to even have a chance.

Southern Sudan President: 

South Will Defend Referendum "At Any Cost"

Vice Presidents Ali Osman Taha and Salva Kiir, wearing his famous hat, at the IGAD summit in Nairobi (AP)

JUBA, Southern Sudan--East African leaders from seven nations convened in Nairobi, Kenya this week at an extraordinary summit of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, to focus on the challenges facing Sudan in the coming months, including implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Sudan's nationwide elections, set to occur next month.

Sudanese civil society activists and opposition politicians have protested the lack of freedom in the electoral process, neighboring governments (namely Eritrea and Egypt) have called for postponement of the polls, and international advocacy groups have declared nearly uniformly that the current political and security climate in Sudan cannot and will not permit free and fair elections. The IGAD summit is a crucial indicator of where Sudan's neighbors stand, and yesterday's statements shed light on the position of southern Sudan in the tense run-up to the polls.

Salva Kiir, president of the Government of Southern Sudan and first vice president of the Republic of Sudan, was unequivocal:

The people of southern Sudan attach more importance to the referendum than the elections. For them the right of self-determination is one of their biggest political achievements in the CPA and they will defend it at any cost.

President Kiir also sought to de-link the two major political processes set to occur in the next 10 months: "The conduct of the elections is not a pre-requisite to the conduct of the referendum," he told the IGAD members.

IGAD has not held a meeting on Sudan since the CPA--which IGAD helped negotiate--was signed in 2005. For this reason, it may be too late for the regional body to seriously assist the Sudanese parties in efforts to make good on the promise of the CPA; it's an understatement to say that the "democratic transformation of Sudan" called for in the CPA cannot happen overnight. The process needed to start immediately following the signing of the CPA, and yet regional attention and support for the agreement is only coming together at the eleventh hour. The event envisioned as a key exercise in the democratization process is now occurring--after two lengthy delays--in the shadow of the southern referendum, which, as the South's leader declared yesterday, is undoubtedly the main event for one of the two Sudanese parties to the CPA.

Meanwhile, U.S. Special Envoy Scott Gration noted in an AP interview from Nairobi that while Sudan's elections won't be perfect, they "could still 'reflect the will of the people.'"

US fears for genocide in Southern Sudan

There's more at Enoughproject.org