US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that Washington is stepping up diplomatic efforts to prepare Sudan to peacefully accept the south's "inevitable" secession in a January vote.
The chief diplomat's comments came as US President Barack Obama prepared to attend a meeting on Sudan at the UN headquarters on 24 September.
Calling the north-south situation a "ticking time-bomb", five years after a peace deal ending a two-decade-old civil war, Clinton said Washington is "ramping up" efforts to resolve the differences between the two sides.
Clinton, according to spokesman Philip Crowley, spoke Wednesday by telephone with Sudan's vice president Ali Osman Taha and southern leader Salva Kiir to encourage them to implement the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and prepare for the referendum.
And Clinton, speaking to foreign policy experts, said the United States is not just involving President Omar al-Beshir's government and the southern leadership, but also the African Union and South Africa as well as European players Britain and Norway.
Relevant Links
- Obama to Help Rescue Peace Deal; Northern Official Says Secession Not 'Inevitable'
- U.S. Steps Up Mediation Efforts as Referendum Nears
- North-South Situation 'Ticking Time Bomb Of Enormous Consequence' - Clinton
- Obama Envoy Speaks on Visit to Juba and Khartoum
- North-South Border Dispute Causing Mistrust
"It's really all hands on deck, so that we're trying to convince the North and South and all the other interested parties who care about the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to weighing in to getting this done," she said.
"But the real problem is, what happens when the inevitable happens and the referendum is passed and the South declares independence?" she said.
"I mean, if you're in the north, and all of a sudden you think a line's going to be drawn and you're going to lose 80 percent of the oil revenues, you're not a very enthusiastic participant."
She said the United States therefore is working with both regional and international partners to "figure out some ways to make it worth their while (in the north) to peacefully accept an independent South."
The South will also have to make "some accommodations" with the north "unless they want more years of warfare," she warned.
Read or listen to this story on the RFI website.
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" .. Washington is stepping up diplomatic efforts to prepare Sudan to peacefully accept the south's "inevitable" secession in a January vote. .."
1) Would the USA "peacefully accept" the secession of any state of the USA - say California, the economic powerhouse? [Answer: NO.]
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2) Can the Africans - and the AU - please tell us:
a) Are they aware that AFRICOM is in place - to kill Africans?
Are they aware that the USA invades countries on a whim and kills millions in the process? How many innocent children have been killed by these same foreigners over the past week in Pakistan, Afghanistan, - and of course, Iraq? How many more are going to be killed and what criminal activity were they engaged in - to deserve slaughter with no trial without justice without the much-touted "rule of law" or universal "human rights"?
b) Why a foreign, invading power (which invades countries to effect "regime change" and kills innocent millions in the process) considers the secession in an African country as "inevitable" - and why the plundering colonial power are so eager to see it happen?
c) What does a foreign, imperial power has to do with "PREPARE Sudan to peacefully accept the south's "inevitable" secession "?
d) We condemn the "Scramble for Africa" for Africa's resources by the imperial whites of resource-poor Europe and the subsequent human catastrophe that was colonialism, slavery, rape, torture and murder of our ancestors. Is this current vicious "Scramble for Africa" for Africa's resources (especially the resources of the disadvantaged, indeed primitive natives of South Sudan) and lands by the imperial whites of resource-poor Europe and USA - especially the resources in South Sudan - more, eh, benevolent and civilized?
"Am I Lumumba's keeper?", thus one named Mobutu may have said in the fastness of the Congo.
What responsibility do African countries - and the AU - have when it comes to the ('barbarian') Africans of South Sudan who are face-to-face with the vicious predatory schemes of an evil, barbarian-exterminating west? One may recognize the Mode of Operation of the imperial plunderers: The muted opposition to USA's invasion of Afghanistan (which the USA had desperately demonized to the world) served to dull the international hue and cry that may have been expected had the USA directly invaded its main quarry, the oil-rich Iraq.
Today Sudan;
Yesterday: Egypt(Mubarak), Kenya(Kibaki, Kenyatta), Zimbabwe(Tsvangirai), South Africa(Mandela, boers);
Tomorrow: CAR, Guinea, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda .. and NIGERIA. [Please note that the fall of Nigeria to forces of th AFRICOM will signal the fall of the entire continent to the plundering West and the extermination of the indigenous African on the African savanna. (Does that remind you of the extermination - by these same virulent whites - of the indigenous natives of North America? And South America? And New Zealand? And ..]
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Now suppose mayhem follows the referendum in Sudan? Does the USA intend to sit on the sidelines as the situation unfolds? Of course not: It is not an innocent bystander now.
The USA and the EU countries have carefully prepared (military) contingency plans for the Sudan. What are AU's contingency plans for Sudan?
How does The AU intend to counteract the aggression of the foreigners in Sudan - and Africa?
Suppose the referendum does NOT turn out the way the USA wants it? [For AU bastards: Check the part played by USA/UK/EU in the bloody aftermath of the 2007 presidential elections in Kenya.]
[For aged dozing geezers at the AU: Note the foreign-instigated instability, mayhem, economic sabotage and deaths following the defeat of UK's puppet in Zimbabwe's elections ..]
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My son, implores the ancestors, you are forewarned.
" ... Does that remind you of the extermination - by these same virulent whites - of the indigenous natives of North America?"
The slaughter of thousands of Congolese. Over ten million by the Europeans in six years at the turn of the last century. The slaughter of over a million Cngolese a year - for critical resources needed by the whites.
The process by which the whites exterminate a people does not happen overnight. But the (multi-pronged) process is gradual - almost impeceptible and easily 'justified to well-meaning 'moral'/'ethical' people. As seen in the extermination of the American Indians and the Aus Aborigines, it is brutal, inexorable - and the alarms are raised when the populations fall below the "critical mass".
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By then it is too late.
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As if Africans need a lecture on the cruelty of man to man.
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Those who have ears have heard.
" .. Can the Africans - and the AU .."
These AU clowns are handsomely rewarded - for what? I have nothing against putting deserving old geezers out to pature. But does "deserving old geezers " have to be any hungry old geezer and does it have to be at the expense and survival of the African Child?
Other than a charge of "sleeping with the enemy", can we recognize "gross negligence" or "dereliction of duty" on the part of these wining, waltzing, womanizing senile geezers at AU? How about sabotage and even "treason" (to be defined)?
Aren't there mechanism currently in place by which they can be held painfully accountable?
I may suggest that in matters that keenly impact negatively ofn the current and future realities of the AFrican Child, there should be noi time limits on culpability. [And we shall put in place the mechanisms - and the guilottine - by which we shall interrupt their hedonism.]
Africa; you have been partison and splits into parts for far too long in histories. If you allow Sudan to be devided, you're giving them the courage to continue to devide Africa for their personnel gains. Why, because after Sudan, they find another area that is rich in minerial resources in Africa and do the same thing. Is this what too many Africans want? I don't think so. Furthermore, when have Africans ever gain in the partision of Africa besides inheriteing the ideas of tribalism and destructions; is it that the way Africa should go, or should Africa go together as United and becomes one with develpments just like any other nations in the world? If the AU allows Sudan to be devided, AU has done worst than OAU; meaning, it has BETRAY AFRICA AND AFRICANS for another centuries to come. Remember that history can be twisted, but a true history can be NEVER forgetting and it persist in people's mind. So, for Africa to stop killings one another, Africa should stop accepting the ideas of destructions. Deviding Sudan or any other African Countries is part of it.
foryohjonathan0000,
Put your cries about the preceived white man's conspiracy and meddling in the African affairs aside.
Now, let me ask you a question: Do you really know what you are talking about here, I mean, about the breaking up of the Sudan?
For your discretion, North and South (the so called the Sudan) has been at war since 1955 well before its independence and that of many African countries. In those days, there were three or two independent African countries at the time. The rest were French's, Dutch's, British's, Portugese's colonies.
So, to an average Southerner in the modern day Sudan (North and South, created and united by the Brits) the struggle and the referendum for independence are an extension of the 1950s and '60s black Afro-nationalism against colonialists and their neo-colonialists.
And about the unity of Africa under the AU? Give me a break! There is neither Africanness in this organization nor does it represent the interest of the majority poor black Africans. Likewise, there is no such thing as united Africa under the AU either.
In fact, it is not in the interest of the would-be independent South Sudan to via for a seat or two or the membership of the AU.
Comes independence next year, South Sudan shall pursue its own political, economic, military and social interest like any other independent country under the Suan. It shall have riends far and beyond; across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. On the same token, never shall it forget the support of its friends and alliesa neighbors which stood by her side politically, militarily, and economically during the dark days.
The bottomline is, South Sudan may be the newest African country in Africa but the so called African Union (AU), the former OAU (Organization of the African Unity) or what ever it stands for hasn't done much to help her in the past and it won't do much in the future.
AU didn't condemn Islamist-Arabists of the northern Sudan when the ARAB MUJIHADEEN including Bin Laden and his fighters DESCENDED ON ITS DEFENCELESS civilians in the 1990s and MASSACRED THEM in their hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.
My last word....? Death to the AU!!
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