observer / sudan

Sudan referendum: This new African state must be nurtured to success

This is a testing time for a country only just recovering from 20 years of civil war. It's the rest of the world's duty to help

• Editorial

• The Observer, Sunday 9 January 2011

• Article history

The birth of a new state is always dangerous. New borders tend to be settled by violence.

Today, voting begins in a referendum on independence for the southern part of Sudan. The poll, generally expected to approve secession from the north, is a provision of the 2005 peace agreement that ended 20 years of civil war. The potential for more conflict is high, but so too are hopes that it can be avoided.

There are grounds for cautious optimism. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has signalled that he would recognise southern statehood. That gesture could never be taken for granted given Mr al-Bashir's reputation as an accomplice in mass murder in Darfur, a separate disputed region. Allowing today's poll to be conducted peacefully will be a more credible statement of peaceful intent.

Another promising sign is a provisional agreement between north and south to share the country's oil wealth. The south will inherit much of the raw material, but the north has the infrastructure to refine it. Already there are disputes about how money trickles down, but both sides recognise in principle the importance of sharing. That, of course, means sharing among rival elites, not sharing with the wider Sudanese population.

But oil is combustible. Its presence plays a part in the failure by the north to include the Abyei region in the referendum, while the south claims it. That is an obvious source of dispute, as are tensions arising from the repatriation of tens of thousands of civil war refugees.

The rest of the world can help by providing diplomatic and financial support to the fledgling state in the south and, distasteful though some might find it, capitalising on the relatively co-operative spirit from Mr al-Bashir. The immediate task is to demarcate a new administrative boundary. But the longer-term goal is to foster habits of political and economic integration that will make the border less, not more, important.