South Africa Soldiers Protect South Sudan's Independence Day

Johannesburg – South African soldiers were in Juba in southern Sudan on Thursday to help with security measures during celebrations to mark the creation of Africa’s newest nation on the weekend.

The Mail and Guardian newspaper quoted Consul General Gabriel Setlhoke as saying that South Africa felt that in order to ensure the safety of its large delegation travelling there, it needed to safeguard the entire event.

“We told the government of South Sudan that if we were to help, it must be something that the South Africans can take care of alone, not together with other countries which would be difficult to co-ordinate,” Setlhoke said.

“We said we would do it because it is critical for the staging of independence.”
The South African government was also asked to secure the new country’s airspace for the duration of the celebrations.

Residents in the south voted in a January referendum to break away from the north following a bloody civil war and will officially celebrate their independence on Saturday.

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What will Happen Next in Sudan

Sudan's Referendum will happen on January the 9th, 2011, as scheduled. If it is a clean election, the South will vote to become a separate country. Whether it is clean or not, the results will be challenged. During the challenge, the allies of each side will emerge.

Expect the usually Islamist suspects to rise up, namly, the Muslim Brotherhood, everywhere in the world. China is a major player, and since it has oil perchase contracts with the North, It is likely they will side with them. The south will ask for whatever help they can get, mostly western sources. The civli rights watchers who nmonitor the Darfur criminals will fall into the south's camp.

When the time of challenges is over, if the south has succeeded in the separation efforts, the North will act. They will act on three fronts, Political, Public Opinion, and Military.

Political.

• They will use what ever diplomatic relationships they have to try and delay implementation of the separation as long as possible.

Public Opinion

• Expect them to borrow a page from the Palestinian book. You will find a cadre of attractive, empassioned sudanese giving press conferences to the press all around the world talking about how the est is trying to pull their country apart.
• Expect al Aqaeda and other islamist groups to begin to recruit using Sudan as another front for the global jihad.

Military

• While using the actions of unsactioned "militia groups" to commit attrocities, The North created almost universal global condimnation in Darfur, a section of NOrth West Sudan, they were tactically very succesfull. The North is already planning series of attacks in the south by "unscantioned malitias.
• Look for Eritria, Somalia, and Ogaden islamist mujahadeen to participate
• Look for al Aqeda trainers and leaders to be active in the mix.

I don't know how the UN, the AU, and the west will respond, but it is likely the South Sudan has been preparing and arming for defense. I see that it is likely that the civil war will be reignighted.

-Shimron Issachar

North Sudan Threatens not to HonorSouth Sudan Referendum

A Sudanese government minister says Khartoum may reject the results of the upcoming referendum on independence for the south.


Youth and sports minister Haj Majid Suwar, a member of President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party, accused the south’s army of venturing out of areas assigned to them by the 2005 peace agreement.


Suwar told reporters the south must withdraw their forces from all disputed areas and allow supporters of a unified Sudan to campaign freely. Otherwise, he said, the north may choose not to recognize the results of the vote and may take its complaints to the United Nations, the United States and the African Union.


A spokesman for the southern army told the Reuters news agency that the accusations were “baseless.” He said all troops were within south Sudan’s borders and were not harassing any campaigners.


Tensions between the north and the south have been rising ahead of the south’s referendum on independence, scheduled for January 9.


Preparations for the voting, including the delineation of a prospective north-south border, are far behind schedule.


Most analysts predict the south will choose independence.


Much of Sudan’s oil wealth is believed to lie along the disputed north-south border. The oil-rich Abyei region is due to hold a separate vote the same day on whether to be part of the north or the south.


The referendum grew out of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 that ended two decades of civil war between northern and southern Sudan.


At the United Nations Friday, leaders of north and south Sudan vowed to work for peace as U.S

Some information in this story was provided by Bloomberg and Reuters.. President Barack Obama called for an on-time referendum in Sudan.

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