Southern Sudan’s time of decision

JUBA, SUDAN – Separation or unity. A solitary hand or two clasped together. Those are the choices — and the printed images on the ballot — for close to 4 million registered voters in southern Sudan beginning Sunday, when a seven-day referendum on separation from Africa’s biggest country begins. The vote, which is likely to lead to the world’s newest nation, is the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended a north-south civil war that lasted two decades and killed 2 million people. Organizing the vote in the impoverished land, where many are herders and nomadic at least part of the year and where only 15 percent of people can read and write, was an enormous challenge. Only 2 percent of…

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Southern Sudan’s time of decision

Posted by on January 7, 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry