South Sudan chooses to secede from the north

Close to 99 percent of south Sudanese chose to secede from the north in a landmark January 9-15 referendum, according to the first complete preliminary results announced on Sunday.

Earlier partial results had put the outcome of the vote beyond doubt, but official figures were announced publicly for the first time during a ceremony attended by President Salva Kiir in the southern capital Juba.

The discreet leader, who is to steer southern Sudan to state-hood in July after overseeing a six-year transition period, said that more than 2 million victims of the 1983-2005 civil war did not die in vain.

Chan Reec, the chairman of the Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau in charge of polling in the south, said a whopping 99.57 percent of those who voted in the south chose secession.

Turnout in the south stood at 99 percent, and only 16,129 people voted for Africa's largest country to remain united, Reec said.

Mohamed Khalil Ibrahim, who chairs the overall referendum commission, said 58 percent of southerners residing in the north, and 99 percent of overseas voters, chose to break away. "The results just announced are decisive," he said.

Kiir said he was not surprised by the almost-unanimous decision to secede.

"I assured you southerners would vote over 90 percent, and now you have proved me right," he said after the results were announced.

Senior southern leaders and diplomats also attended the ceremony organized at former rebel leader John Garang's mausoleum.

The revered Garang died in a plane crash shortly after signing the January 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of conflict between the black, Christian-dominated south and the mainly Arab Muslim north.

The emotional week-long referendum, which saw huge lines of dancing and praying voters form outside polling stations, was the centerpiece of the peace deal.

The international community has praised a ballot that allayed fears that a defining moment in southern Sudan's history would be marred by violence.

Norwegian Minister of the Environment and Development Erik Solheim, whose country is a member of the troika that sponsored the 2005 deal, said the southern Sudanese people had "spoken with absolute clarity

In Khartoum, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who spearheaded the north's efforts to quash the rebellion during much of the 1983-2005 civil war, has already recognized the prospect of partition.

He earlier described the south's decision to become the world's 193rd state as "a new beginning" and expressed hope that the two countries would enjoy "brotherly" relations.

AFP