One country or two: Sudan to split

[tor_khan]

The map of Africa is about to change. The continent's largest country looks set to be split in two as southern Sudanese start voting in a referendum on independence this Sunday.

This is no cliff-hanger - it would be a surprise if fewer than 90% of the votes were in favour of breaking away from the north.

"Bye Bye Khartoum," reads a banner outside a shop in Juba - the town which is surely going to become the world's newest capital.

The southerners, who are mostly Christian or follow traditional beliefs, deeply resent years of domination by the mainly Arab north whose politicians tried but failed to impose Islamic law right across the country, sparking two decades of war.

"I need separation because the Arabs have been sitting on the southerners," said Jimmy, one of the workers in the shop.
"We do not need any leadership from Khartoum. We have our own resources. We have been suffering for over 50 years," added the shop-owner, Francis.

"I was born in war. I grew up in the war. Throughout my education - war was there. I could only set up this business when the peace came," he added.

Sudan's independence in 1956 followed more than 50 years of joint British-Egyptian rule but 2011 is the year that most southerners expect to start counting the years of real independence.



The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.

Source: BBC

[drona]

Interestingly, 85% of the oil resources are in Christian southern Sudan. China opposes this division as Khartoum is in their pocket and they have been protecting them from UNSC sanctions [Darfur !!] in lieu of exploiting the oil resources. I suspect US is pushing for the division.

[Toramana]

I think this is a Zionist conspiracy against Muslim Ummah...

[Michin Khel]

This division would be like division of british india into pakistan and india.

[graveyardofempires]

the division is fired up by christians in the south and they are using the notion that north sudan is arabized and discriminate southern sudanese more blacker people.

i know some sudanese people and they are nice people form south sudan one of them is christian and the two other are muslims.this division means muslims will be stuck under christian rule in south and than on its turn christians will be in th ehands of former colonists.
so this is very much influenced by foreign powers and its about the oil and much more.

i wish to see a united sudan not a devided one.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I think this is a Zionist conspiracy against Muslim Ummah...

Once again you give away your true feelings and do it rather foolishly. I posted an article by Mike Scheuer, head of the Alec Station Bin Ladin CIA unit and asked you to rebut it point by point. You could not provide a single point of contention.

Your absurd goal is to prove that this is Muslim paranoia. It appears that the experts on the other side, or the "infidel" side as you call it, disagree with you as well.

Remember, you will lose in the long run. You are playing right into the hands of the strategists that you seek to have hung. You have already failed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For onlookers, here is the article the link to it:

http://non-intervention.com/751/u-s-...for-americans/

U.S. intervention in Sudan and Somalia: Sowing war’s whirlwind for Americans

By mike | Published: December 29, 2010
How many non-elite Americans do you think can find “Darfur” on a map? How many of the same tax-paying folks do you think want the U.S. government to spend money on the poor, hungry, unemployed, and illiterate in Darfur, when there are tens of thousands of Americans living in the same conditions at home? And how many non-elite Americans want to worsen America’s war with Islam?
My own hunch is that: (a) not many could find Darfur on a map; (b) few would want to send their taxes abroad when so many Americans need assistance; and (c) even fewer would want more war with Islam abroad and at home.
Well guess what, all of these non-elite Americans are fresh out of luck. With the U.S. government and such scintillating strategic thinkers as George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Angelina Jolie, and Mia Farrow in the lead, the West is about to help rip Darfur and the rest of Muslim Sudan’s oil-rich southern territories out of the country and create an independent, largely Christian state.
Under the guise of a “referendum” (set for 9 January 2011) that will be observed by a 110-person European Union team of imperial busybodies, Sudan’s primarily Christian south will be severed from the Sudanese nation-state, setting the stage for a continuation of the decades old Muslim-Christian Sudanese civil war. The difference will be that henceforth — as is occurring in Somalia — the U.S. and the West will be obliged to protect the new nation they created by theft and oil lust with diplomacy, funding, arms, military training, and eventually troops.
And what is America’s interest in becoming involved to the hilt and inextricably in Sudan? What is so vital to the United States in Sudan that President Obama is pressing the leaders of Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and the other states of the African Union to support “our intense interest in having a successful referendum” — read that as “our intense interest in carving up Sudan to suit our imperial purposes and corner access to Sudanese oil.” (As an aside, one must admit Rudyard Obama is nothing if not an aggressive proponent of improving — that is, “Westernizing” — the lives of “our little brown brothers,” although the blatant theft of Islamic land is a rather odd component for the kinder and more gentle “Muslim outreach program” Obama announced in Cairo and Jakarta.)
The answer is that Obama, our bipartisan political elite, the mainstream media, and the rich, immature, libertine, and anti-U.S. Hollywood set lead by Clooney, et al, want to feel good about themselves by doing “good” for foreigners. For these elite U.S. citizens-of-the-world, ordinary Americans and their kids can starve, freeze, live on the streets, fail to find work, and remain illiterate forever. In essence, they can rot while Washington spends their taxes on Darfur — a place where absolutely no genuine U.S. interest is at stake.
Now, that’s a bit harsh and in one aspect even wrong. The Democrats and Republicans must ensure that ordinary Americans are kept well-off enough to keep having children who will join the U.S. military that will be used to fight the wars their interventionism start. And there can be no doubt that Washington’s leading role in championing Darfur’s secession from Sudan will intensify America’s war with Islam and the evolving Islam-vs-Christianity war in Africa. And, not surprisingly, the ever-adept Osama bin Laden began setting this trap for the United States over the course of the last decade.
Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Abu Yaha al-Libi, one of al-Qaeda’s leading theologians, have spoken publicly and on multiple occasions about Washington’s intention to intervene in Somalia and Sudan to halt the spread of Sunni Islam in the Horn of Africa; to eliminate the Islamic regime in Sudan; to champion the spread of Christianity in Africa; and to ensure Sudan’s massive oil reserves are in pro-U.S. hands. Obama’s administration, with full Republican support, is about to make these three al-Qaeda leaders appear omniscient to the Muslim world.
When more non-Muslim troops arrive in Somalia and the 9 January referendum divides Sudan, three things will be clear to Muslims worldwide.
1.) Under the Bush administration, Washington supported the destruction of Somalia’s Islamic Courts regime via an invasion by the army of Christian Ethiopia. Under Bush and now under Obama, Washington supports a non-Islamic, UN-mandated government which is seen by Somalis as illegitimate and holds a small portion of the capital of Mogadishu only because it is supported by a non-Muslim, UN-backed intervention force from Uganda and Burundi. Obama and other Western leaders support the expansion of that force from 8,000 men to 12,000. Needless to say, the size of anti-UN, Somali Islamist forces is growing; al-Qaeda’s footprint in Somalia is spreading and solidifying; and Islamist militancy on Africa’s east coast is intensifying.
2.) As Obama and other Western leaders join together to carve out a new Christian state from Sudanese territory, they are simultaneously taking from Muslim Sudan most of its southern oil-producing region. Today, Sudan is Sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest oil producer, and the sale of that oil produces much of the country’s income ($4.4 billion in 2010). Thus the West is not only intent on depriving Sudan of about half of its territory, but it intends to punish the Islamic regime in Khartoum by giving control over Sudan’s oil reserves to a new Christian state. Confronted by this threat in the south and the growing Western-backed, anti-Islamist military presence to the east in Somalia, it is not surprising that Sudan’s President Bashir has promised to further Islamicize the remaining rump of his country. This act is certain to create more — not less — Muslim-Christian fighting in Sudan, and to bring in more aid from al-Qaeda and like-minded groups, as well as from countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuawit, and the UAE.
3.) The creation of new largely Christian state in southern Sudan also will be seen by Muslims as yet another example of the theft by other faiths of historically Muslim land. Whether it is Kashmir, now held by India 60 years after the UN promised a plebiscite to see if Muslim Kashmiris want to be part of that Hindu state; the extraction of East Timor from Muslim Indonesia by a UN-led military force to create a new Christian state; the growing presence of Christian forces in Muslim Somalia; or the occupation of Muslim Palestine by Christian-backed Jews to create a Jewish state, coming events in Sudan will again underline the Muslim world’s perception that its lands are always ripe for picking by other the politicians and military forces of other faiths.
Thus, the Western-led secession of southern Sudan will again validate much of what bin Laden and other Islamist leaders have told Muslims to expect from their Christian, Jewish, and Hindu enemies: invasion, occupation, annexation, and loss of natural resources, especially oil. And given that perception is always reality, this assessment by much of the Muslim world will lead directly to enhancing the popular appeal of a jihad that has as one of its key missions the recovery of stolen Muslim lands.
At day’s end, Washington’s sponsorship of or participation in Western and/or UN-led interventionism in Africa drains the U.S. treasury; gives the needs of foreigners priority over those of Americans; causes more warfare; and negates what has been called the “proper influence of our republican example.”
And in the case of the Obama administration’s support for expanding the UN-led occupation of Muslim Somalia and the carving up of Muslim Sudan, U.S. interventionism will lead to more Islamist attacks in the United States. It is well known that U.S.-citizen Muslim Somalis are increasingly involved in planning and participating in such actions in America and abroad because of their anger over the Western-backed UN intervention in Somalia. Now Washington, by championing the theft of half the territory and most of the energy resources of Muslim Sudan under a referendum designed to create a new Christian state, will provide the impetus and justification for similar actions by U.S.-citizen Muslim Sudanese.
This seems a high price for ordinary Americans to pay just so Obama, McCain, the Clintons, and the spoiled Hollywood libertines can feel good about themselves. After thanking Allah for their folly, I hope Osama has the good manners to send all of them a nice thank-you note.

[tor_khan]

What is happening here is a "partition". My question is, given the Pakistan-India experience, are "partitions" based on religious/ethnic divides inevitable?

If so, then India had no choice - Pakistan was a forgone entity, it would have happened anyway. People of differing religions will naturally divide, or is there a deeper/economic political drive that forces people apart?

And what of unity? What can we Pashtoons learn from Sudan?

[graveyardofempires]

i see parralels with durrand line

[Toramana]

That day I asked a Sunni Arab Muslim from Iraq about the issue in Iraq. He said Shias are cunning/untrustworthy and are associated with Iran. He also passed negative remarks about their religious beliefs and said once Americans are out, Sunni Arabs will teach a lesson to Shias and Kurds.

He said Arab countries are not establishning relations with Iraq because of Shia domination.

[Pukhtoon007]

What is happening here is a "partition". My question is, given the Pakistan-India experience, are "partitions" based on religious/ethnic divides inevitable?

If so, then India had no choice - Pakistan was a forgone entity, it would have happened anyway. People of differing religions will naturally divide, or is there a deeper/economic political drive that forces people apart?

And what of unity? What can we Pashtoons learn from Sudan?

salam bro i dnt hav the knowledge to answer ur post but i wanna say something. in my opinion people with differing religions will divide eventuali because of "absolutism" lol no matter how much u say i respect ur religion we can live side by side in harmony at the end of the day someone will say their religion is absolute its perfect its the only right religion. and from there one the fragile harmony or interfaith community will fall apart. until different faiths will want their own government state. but the sad reality is its never going to stop because first its 2 different religions then its 2 different sects of the same religion god human nature.eg "islamic spain"