South Sudan might have to hold own referendum - president
JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) - South Sudan's president told U.N. Security Council envoys his region might have to hold its own independence referendum if the north disrupted January's vote, a visiting U.N. ambassador said Thursday.
Such a move would enrage Khartoum, which wants to keep Africa's largest country in one piece. A senior northern official described Kiir's statement as "unacceptable."
Southerners are about three months away from a referendum on whether they should form Africa's newest country or stay united with the north, their foes in a decades-long civil war that ended in 2005. Analysts have warned they may go back to war.
Preparations for the vote are behind schedule and the south has repeatedly accused the north of trying to delay the ballot to keep control of the region's oil, a charge Khartoum denies.
"He (southern president Salva Kiir) set out quite a powerful case for why the referendum had to go ahead on time and the fact that he felt (the) referendum would end up (with) a vote for separation," Britain's Security Council ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters, describing what Kiir had told envoys during a meeting in the southern capital Juba Wednesday.
"He was not going to declare UDI (a unilateral declaration of independence). But if there is a delay, a politically induced delay by the NCP (the north's dominant National Congress Party) for the referendum, then it might be necessary for the south to hold their own referendum," Lyall Grant added, reporting what Kiir had said to envoys.
Lyall Grant said a new timetable, laying out preparations for the referendum ahead of its scheduled start date on January 9, 2011, was "very ambitious."
He told reporters the envoys would use their visit to Sudan to show a united front and press northern and southern leaders to hold the vote as scheduled.
"All members of the Security Council are saying they are united behind pressing both parties to make the necessary preparations ... to allow the referendum to take place on time, be credible and be respected by all parties," he said.
The referendum, and a vote on whether the area of Abyei will join the north or south, were promised in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Africa's longest civil war.
Senior NCP official Rabie Abdelati told Reuters Kiir's words were unacceptable and said Khartoum would not accept the result of an independence vote organised by the south on its own.
"Nobody would recognise it. This is against CPA. Everything about its implementation should be agreed by the two partners."
Kiir offered pardons to four men accused of attacks in the south as part of efforts to heal political divisions in the build-up to the vote, officials said Thursday.
The envoys were due to fly to Sudan's western Darfur region, the site of a separate seven-year conflict, later Thursday.
(Writing by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Louise Ireland)